\ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/literaryhoursors01drak LITERARY HOURS : OR SKETCHES CRITICAL, NARRATIVE, and POETICAL. n y NATHAN DRAKE, M. D. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. THE THIRD EDITION. 1NN0CUAS AMO DELICIAS, DOCTAMQUE QUIETEM; LONDON: PRINTED FOR T. CADELL AND W. DAVIES, STRAND, 1804.' Luke Hanfard, Printer, Great Turnstile, Lincoln's-Irm Fields. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION. The favour of the 'Public having conducted a third edition of the Literary Hours to the Press, the author has taken the opportunity not only of correcting and enlarging the former edition, but of soliciting its attention to a third volume, which ? being a continuation of the plan hitherto approved, zvill, he ventures to hope, experience a cordial reception. To accommodate the purchasers of the second edition, the third volume, printed so as to correspond with it in size and appearance, will be sold separately. Hadleigh, Suffolk , January, 1804. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITI OR IN this edition, many of the former numbers have been corrected and enlarged, and nine new ones have been added. An Index also of those authors and artists on whose produc- tions any comment or criticism has been -passed, is annexed to the second volume, and will, the author hopes, prove useful as an aid t% reference. Hadleigh, Suffolk, April, i8oo 9 TO THE REV. FRANCIS DRAKE, E. D. FELLOW OF MAUDLIN COLLEGE, OXFORD. DEAR SIR, I feel peculiar satisfac- tion in dedicating this little work, the product of my leisure hours, of hours devoted to elegant literature during the intervals of professional study and employment, to the companion of my early years. Accept, dear Sir, this small testi- mony of my friendship, my respect, and esteem, NATHAN DRAKE, Hadleigh, Suffolk, August , 1798. PREFACE. Happiness in this life certainly in a great measure depends on our facility in acquiring a taste for innocent and easily procurable plea- sures. He therefore who possesses a relish for literature and science, will seldom v complain of the tediousness and protraction of time, but may in general affirm, with a celebrated writer, that, excluding pain and sickness, " with books, no day has been so dark as not to have its pleasure."* To the composition of the following papers, whatever may be their fate as to literary merit, the author, conscious that they contain no sentiment inimical to virtue or to religion, can, with sincerity, say, that he is indebted for much consolatory employment ; that he has found, in their formation, a refuge from anxiety * Aikin, iv PREFACE* and disappointment, and has been taught, by experience, to think that, surrounded as we all are with ever-varying accidents and calamities? hours thus spent should be esteemed as Sunny islands in a stormy main, As spots of azure in a cloudy sky.* Scott, * Six of the following papers were published, about eight year* 3go, in a periodical paper. These however have now under** gone very considerable additions and alterations. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. AS the principal part of the ensuing volume consists of critical disquisition, I have endea- voured to alleviate the dryness usually, in the opinion of a numerous class of readers, attend- ant on such discussion, not only by the beauty and merit of the quotations selected for the purpose of elucidation, but likewise by the introduction of original tales and" pieces of poetry. These I have interspersed at nearly equal distances, with the view of breaking in upon that uniformity of diction and style which must necessarily be the result of long continued attention to literary subjects j and I should - 11 PREFACE, hope they may contribute something towards acquiring popularity for the work, something towards mitigating the didactic and severer tone of the pages devoted to criticism. In the present hour of difficulty and danger, when politics and finance appear so entirely to occupy the public mind, it is little to be ex- pected that subjects of fancy and mere elegant literature should greatly excite attention, or meet with adequate support. Long, however, as our eyes have been now turned on scenes of turbulence anci anarchy, long as we have list* ened with horror to the storm which has swept over Europe with such ungovernable fury, it must, I should imagine, prove highly grateful, highly soothing to the wearied mind, occasion- ally to repose on such topics as literature and imagination are willing to afford. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME, NO. PAGE . I. Observations on the Writings and Genius of Lucretius, with Specimens of a New Translation - -- -- -- - i 2. The same concluded ------- 35 3. On the Government of the Imagination > on the Frenzy of Tasso and Collins - 51 4. On the Tender Melancholy which usually follows* the acuter feelings of Sorrow - 73 Wolkmar and his Dog, a Tale. The Tem- pest, a Poem. Lucy, a Poem - - - 87 6. On Sonnet- Writing. Four Sonnets - - 103 7. On Inscriptive Writing ------ 119 8. On Gothic Superstition. Ode to Super- stition ----------137 9. Henry Fitzowen, a Gothic Tale - - - 155 10. The same continued - - - - - - • I ?9 CONTENTS, NO. PAGE ii. The same concluded - - - » S 195 12- On the Fleece of Dyer - - - - - -209 13. The same concluded ------- 237 14* On the Dark Ages of Christian Europe as contrasted with the Caliphats of Bagdad and Cordova - -- -- -- - 259 15. The same concluded ------- 287 16. On Pastoral Poetry. Edwin and Orlando, a Pastoral - -- -- -- -- 327 .27. On Objects of Terror. Montmorenci, a Fragment - - - 35S 18. Observations on the Calvary of Cumberland 377 19. The same continued - A - - - - - 403 20. The same continued -------421 21. The same concluded - - » «? * r 435 NUMBER L Carmina sublimis tunc sunt peritura Lucreti Exitio Terras cum dabit una Dies.* Ovid. This prediction of Ovid, with regard to the durability of the Poems of Lucretius, was in imminent danger of being compleatly over- thrown through the barbarism of modern Eu- rope. Lucretius had, for several centuries, disappeared, and had entirely escaped the re- searches of the few who were interested in the preservation of ancient literature, until the commencement of the fifteenth century, when * This second line of my motto is a verbal copy from Lu- cretius y and in thus using the very phraseology of the philoso- phic poet, Ovid appears to have thought that the intrinsic merit of this tribute of respect would be doubled. Lucretius, in lib, Y« 93, 96, thus expresses himself; terras ■ " ■»■ ■ ' Una dies dabit exitio. Vol. I, B 2 LITERARY NO. I, the philosophic poet was restored to the ad- miration of the world through the indefati- gable perseverance of Poggio Bracciolini. A history of the discovery of ancient manuscripts has been frequently mentioned as a work that would prove highly interesting to the scholar and the man of taste ; and, in such a volume, Poggio would merit every encomium which gratitude could furnish. It is from the fol- lowing lines in a latin elegy by Christoforo Landino, on the death of this celebrated or- nament of his age, that we learn where to pay our acknowledgements for the first of philo- sophic poems. Landino, recording the dis- coveries of his friend, exclaims, Illius — manu nobis, doctissime rhetor, Integer in Latium, Quintiliane, redis; Illius atque manu, divina poemata Silt Italici redeunt, usque legenda suis : Et ne nos lateat variorum cultus agrorum, Ipfe Columella grande reportat opus : Ette, Lucreti, longo post tempore, tandem Civibus et Patriae reddit habere ture. We are likewise indebted to Poggio for Plautus, parts of Statins, and Valerius Flaccus; but in rescuing from oblivion the sublime 6 So. te hours. 3 disciple of Epicurus, he has conferred an obli- gation of incalculable extent. It is astonish- ing how numerous have been the imitations, in almost every european language, of this exquisite poet, and that Virgil possessed a high relish of, and a desire to copy his beau- ties, every page of the Georgics affords proof. Whether Lucretius can lay claim to perfect originality in the conception and execution of his poem, is a subject of considerable uncer- tainty; little of the didactic poetry of the Greeks is left, and the Opera et Dies of Hesiod, though conveying precepts in verse, xrato, with scarce any probability, be considered as furnishing a model for the philosophic ge- nius of the Roman. That verses, however, inculcating the tenets of the different schools of philosophy, existed in Greece, wants not the fullest testimony ; and the poem of Empedocles on the doctrines of Pythagoras, was so cele- brated for its energy and hajmony, that it was publicly recited, along with the works of Homer and Hesiod, at the Olympic Games. Many, indeed, have not hesitated to avow, that the Roman Bard found his prototype in this B 2 4 LITERARY NO. I, production of the Sicilian : but the assertion is founded merely on conjecture, and, perhaps the whole controversy may be now deemed beyond the limit of inquiry. We shall, therefore, consider this work of Lucretius as the earliest specimen which has descended to us of t'he philosophic poetry of the ancients ; for though, in common with the writings of Hesiod, it may be included under the Genus Didactic, as endeavouring to teach and instruct through the medium of versifi- cation, yet, as aspiring to develop the prin- ciples of natural and moral philosophy, k takes a higher station than any poem on Agriculture can ever hope to attain. To combine the most exquisite poetry with the clashing and recondite dogmata of the grecian schools, was an arduous task, and to which very few, even in the first ranks of genius, could be supposed equal. However various and hostile may be the ideas with regard to the tenets of Lucretius, of his merit as a poet, I should imagine, there can be but one opinion. He who has acquired a just taste for sublime sentiment and luminous descrip- tion, will find his highest gratification m NO. I. HOtJR S. 5 the perusal of his pages, nor will he hesitate to place him at the head Roman poetry. Even Virgil, deservedly celebrated as he is for pic- toresque delineation, has not surpassed, either in design or colouring, the glowing landscapes of the elder bard. How rapturous must have been the enjoyment of the poet of Mantua in contemplating and dwellingupon the beautiful and highly finished pictures of his predecessor! What a study for intellect so congenial, so capable of emulating the excellence it delighted to admire ! Numerous passages in the Geor- gics breathe the very spirit of Lucretius, and shouW the curious reader undertake the task of comparison, he would soon perceive how conscious Virgil must have been that the very words of his Master were of worth too great to be superseded. In fact, not only the imagery, but almost every epithet, in the digressional and episodic parts of this wonderful poem, is so appropriate, so imbued with a tint essential to the harmony of the whole, that, to attempt its change were to destroy the effect of the piece. The same judgment which led Virgil to study and to imitate the works of Lucretius, as models for descriptive poetry, has influ- enced too the poets of England, and Spenser f *3 6 LITERARY MX 1. Milton, Thomson, and Gray, have frequently caught the manner, and copied the hues and grouping, of this enchanting artist. " The Persians," observes Dr. Warton, " distinguish the different degrees of the strength of fancy in different poets, by calling them, painters or sculptors. Lucretius, from the force of his images, should be ranked among the latter. He is, in truth, a Sculptor-Poet. His images have a bold relief." * Dropping, however, the language of a sister art, though frequently happily employed in illustrating the beauties and defects of poetry, it may be remarked, that the diction of Lucretius is peculiarly adapted to the nature of his theme 5 when ex- plaining the abstruse theories of philosophy, his phraseology is uniformly plain and perspi- cuous, yet often possessing due dignity from the subject, and, in many instances, exhibiting an admirable specimen of simple grandeur. In his similes and episodes, the richest orna- ments of style, the boldest metaphors and figures, and a construction of verse that even Virgil has not exceeded, unite to develop and * Warton on the Wrings and Genius of Pope, voh ii page 105. SO. I. HOURS. 7 convey a fertility, accuracy and amenity in description, a sublimity of imagination and sentiment, which no criticism can do justice to, which elicit the involuntary exclamations of rapture, and whjch can only be enjoyed by the enthusiasm of genius. It must, however, be confessed, that the numerous pages devoted to the analysis of doctrines varied and profound in the extreme, will, in a poetic view, often press heavy on the patience of the reader - 3 but, perhaps, these very passages, pure in their diction, and cor- rectly expressed, though rigidly chastised in style, and free from all intrusive ornament, add, by the charm of contrast: and variety, new graces to those parts on which embellishment has been bestowed with a more liberal hand. After luxuriously enjoying scenes lighted up by all the blaze and splendour of exalted fancy, the plain but not inelegant detail of phi- losophic disquisition, gives a necessary relief, and prepares the mind for the keener relish of succeeding beauties. When emerging from the intricate and eccentric mazes of elaborate disputation, what a pleasing horror thrills through the veins on the magnificent prosopo* B 4 8 LITERARY NO. I. peia of Nature,* who, with a majesty which arrests the deepest attention, chides her un- grateful children, and upbraids their impious discontent ; and with what exquisite delight we listen to the commencement and progress of the Arts.f during which so many delicious scenes are unfolded, so many striking and im- pressive descriptions occur, After this encomium on the poetry of Lu- cretius, it will probably be demanded, why his writings have not been more popular ? why, to the generality of classical scholars, he is nearly unknown ? why, whilst Virgil, Horace, und Tibullus, are perused with avidity, the animated effusions of this sublimcst of roman bards, should lie neglected on the shelf? It may be answered, I think, that a fate so un- deserved, has been occasioned by a misrepre- sentation of his morals, and by a puerile and injudicious dread of his philosophical tenets. The morality of Epicurus, so far from favour- ing the indulgence of sensuality, holds out every incentive to temperance. It is true 5 * See the conclusion of the third book, 1 Book the fifth, towards the end* NO. X- HOURS. 9 that he maintained all happiness to consist in pleasure, but, at the same time, taught, that genuine and durable pleasure could only arise from the cultivation of the mental powers, and the strictest attention to every social and do- mestic virtue. Diogenes and Galen represent this much-injured Philosopher as. a person of consummate virtue, who despised the sordid cares and luxuries of life, and contemned every excess in eating, drinking, and apparel. Unfortunately for the pure fame of Epicurus, Horace, adopting the accusation which envy and calumny had conspired to broach, the very name of him who taught the purest mo- rals, the most rigid chastity and sobriety, has become an epithet to convey the idea of every sensual and voluptuous enjoyment. Lucretius, in conformity to the moral pre- cepts of his Master, uses every dissuasive against vice, every incentive towards virtue. Profusion, avarice, and ambition, cruelty, in- justice, and revenge, the disordered passions of the mind, the pampered pleasures of the body, alike require and meet his severest reprobation. The sweetest passages in his poem are employ- ed in the delineation of rural simplicity, and lO LITERARY NO. I. domestic happiness, of innocent and contented poverty; and, in short, the moral purport of his system may be comprized in the two fol- lowing lines of one of our most pathetic poets t Man wants but little here below, Nor wants that little long.* and which are, indeed, but a compressed trans^ lation of four beautiful ones in Lucretius : - Corpoream ad naturam pauca videmus Esse opus omnino, quae demant quemque dolorem, Delicias quoque uti multas substernere possint, Gratius interdum neque Natura ipsa requirit.f That the philosophical and religious princi- ples of our Epicurean Bard are not so defen- sible as his moral, will be readily admitted. In these days, when contrasted with sound philosophy and pure religion, many of his doctrines appear baseless and absurd, but as- suredly not more so than the gross mythology of Homer, Virgil and Ovid, and why we still peruse these authors with rapture, careless -of their impious opinions, yet refuse to taste the * Goldsmith's Edwin and Angelina, < | Lib. ii. I, ^ KO. I. HOURS* II exquisite poetry of Lucretius because occa- sionally tinged with metaphysic error, is an inconsistency not easily accounted for. The idea of Epicurus, that it is the nature of the Gods, to enjoy an immortality m the bosom of perpetual peace, infinitely remote from all relation to this globe, free from care, from sorrow, and from pain, supremely happy in themselves, and neither rejoicing in the plea- sures, nor concerned for the evils of humanity^ though perfectly void of any rational founda- tion, yet possesses much moral charm, when compared with the popular religions of Greece and Rome ; the felicity of their deities con- sisted in the vilest debauchery, nor was there a crime, however deep its dye, that had not been committed, and gloried in, by soma one of their numerous objects of worfliip. The Immortals of Epicurus, on the other hand, are virtuous and innocent, but he has, unfortunate- ly, exempted them from the toil of creation^ and snatched the universe from their grasp. To these tenets of the Grecian, Lucretius has added the Infinite of Anaximander, and the Atomic theory of Democritus : doctrines such as these, which lead to the fortuitous formation of the work^ are perfectly incapable of making any impression upon a mind either imbued with religion, or familiar with the progress of philosophy and science. He, therefore, who should refrain from a perusal of the poet, un- der the apprehension of becoming a convert to his religious opinions, would, in the present period of scientific improvement, be consi~ dered as either naturally imbecile in intellect, or, verging towards a state of insanity. Futile, however, as the data, on which the peculiar system of Lucretius is built, may justly be deemed, his work abounds with a vast variety of philosophical doctrines, perhaps including every sect among the ancients. The subtile hypotheses of Epicurus, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras and Democritus, of Anaximander, Pythagoras, Anaximencs, Thales, Pherecydes, Aristotle and Plato, pass in review before him, and it affords some asto- nishment, and much curious speculation to the reflecting mind, that, probably, not a system of philosophy exists among the moderns,which has not had its foundation laid upon some one opinion or other of these ancient theorists, and the outlines of which may not be four^d in the pages of Lucretius, Even the Newtonian NO. I. HOURS. 13 doctrine of Gravitation was not unknown to our poet, for, in his first book, he attempts to jfefute the idea, that the universe has a centre to which all things tend by their natural gra- vity. That the central spot had the strongest power of attraction was equally an hypothesis of Sir Isaac Newton and the ancient Stoics. It is not 'a little extraordinary, therefore, that an ancient composition, pregnant with such exquisite poetry, and unfolding such a cu- rious mass of philosophical conception, fliould not have been more generally studied. Men of poetic genius, indeed, have frequently had recourse to these materials, and have drawn, from the splendid creations of the Roman, many of their most brilliant and beautiful de- signs, and with the greater air of originality, as the model from whence they sketched, had, comparatively, attracted but a small portion of the attention of the mere classical scholar. It is only, indeed, within these few years, that in our island, as a writer at once elegant, interest- ing, and sublime, Lucretius has been honoured with due notice. Dr. Warton, with much taste, pointed out many of the noble images so thickly sown throughout the poem, and the 14 LITERARY* » O. U late magnificent edition by Gilbert Wakefield, who to great critical acumen adds all that sen- sibility and enthusiasm so essential to a just relish of the higher beauties of poetry, together with the elegant Translation we are about to give some specimens of, will ensure the repu- tation, and familiarise the excellencies of our hitherto neglected Bard. To translate with harmony and fidelity such an author as Lucretius, is an enterprise of no small difficulty, and requires the utmost com- mand of language, not only to transfer the glowing scenery of the poem, but to transmit, with melody and precision, the diction of the schools. Few, therefore, have been the at- tempts, in England, to naturalize this poet, and of these few, the greater part has been pre- eminently unfortunate. Mr. Evelyn, with the utmost admiration of his original, and with every wish to excel, commenced the arduous task, exclaiming, I saw a fruitful soil, by none yet trod. Reserved For heroes, or some demi-god, And urg'd my fortune on — — — * * Lines addressed to Mr. Creech, NO. I. HOURS. |J but, after struggling through the first book, he relinquished the undertaking in despair. Creech, however, had more perseverance, and has given us an entire version, but so little has he preserved of the dignity, of the sublimity, and descriptive powers of the poet, that it is impossible to form any idea of the beautiful original from his coarse and ill-executed copy* Some couplets which have merit, might be selected from the volume, and a few passages which attempt the delineation of rural ease and happiness; but take it as a whole, it is utterly deficient in one of the most striking characteristics of the Roman, grandeur and felicity of expression. Dryden has rather paraphrased than translated, and though in the small portion he has favoured us with, his versification be, as usual, spirited and easy, it wants the majesty and solemn colouring of Lucretius; and towards the conclusion of the fourth book he is more licentious, broad and open, than ttie text, faulty as it undoubtedly is, in this respect, will warrant. Toward the middle of the last century, a version in profe was published, together with the original, and with plates, engraved by Guernier : it is evi- dent that an attempt of this kind can have few l6 LITERARY N0.2V pretensions to any other merit than that which arises from a literal adherence to the sense of the original ; in this view, it appears not to be deficient, and, as Lucretius, from the nature of his subject, is, occasionally, intricate, may have its use. These being the only efforts hitherto made to clothe in a British dress the first, perhaps, of Roman Poets, a translation, which to ele- ' gance and energy of diction, should: add the charms of versification, ^ncl a fidelity as well with regard to the manner, as matter of the poet, has become a desideratum in english literature, and I feel peculiar pleasure in being able to inform the literary world that a version, which appears to me, as far as I am able to estimate its merits, fully capable of supplying the deficiency, is in preparation for the public. Mr. Good, of London,* has, for some years, devoted his leisure hours to this elaborate undertaking, and, if friendship hath not biassed my judgment, with the happiest success. That my readers, however, may be enabled to form an opinion for themselves, I fhall place before * Caroline Place, Guildford Street* U HOURS. j j them some extracts from the different books, accompanied by the original, and as these have not been selected from any preference disco- verable in their translation, they may be con- sidered as a fair specimen of the whole* The Sacrifice of Iphigenia is a picture of high rank in the gallery of the poet, and de- mands our notice. Lucretius after celebrat- ing the genius of Epicurus, whose doctrine first put to flight the terrors of superstition, thus proceeds : Illiid in his rebus vereor, ne forte rearis Impia te ra.tionis inire elementa, viamque Endogredi sceleris : Quod contra, S3epius olim Religio peperit scelerosa atque impia facta, Aulide quo pacto Trivial virginis aram Jphianassai turparunt sanguine fcede Ductores Danaum, delecti, prima virorum. Cui simul infula virgineos circumdata comptus Ex utraque pari malarum parte profusa 'st, Et mcestum simul ante aras adstare parentcm Sensit, et hunc propter fer rum celare ministros ; Aspectuque suo lacrymas effundere civeis ; Muta metu terram genibus summissa petebar ; Nec miserae prodesse in tali tempore quibat, ' Quod patrio princeps donarat nomine regem. Nam sublata virum manibus tremebundaque ad aras Vol. I. C 1 8 LITERARY NO. Deducta 'st, non ut, solenni more sacrorum Perfecto, posset claro comitari Hymemeo : Sed casta inceste nubendi tempore in ipso Hostia concideret mactatu moesta parentis, Exitus ut classi felix, faustusque daretur Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum. Lib. i. 1. Nor deem, the truths Philosophy reveals Corrupt the mind, or prompt to impious deeds. No : Superstition may, and nought so soon, But Wisdom never. Superstition 'twas Urg'd the fell Grecian chiefs with virgin blood To stain the virgin altar : — barb'rous deed, And fatal to their laurels ! Aulis saw, For there Diana reigns, nV unholy rite. Around she look'd, the pride of Grecian maids. The lovely Iphigenia, — round she look d, The sacred fillet o'er her tresses tied, And sought in vain protection. She surveyed Near her her weeping sire, a band of priests Repentant half, and hiding the keen steel ; And crowds of citizens and damsels pale Fixt in each tragic attitude of woe. Dumb with alarm, with supplicating knee. And lifted eye ? she sought compassion still, Fruitless and unavailing ! — Vain her youth, Her innocence and beauty : vain the boast Of regal birrh ; and vain that tirst herself Lisp'd the dear name of father, eldest born. KO. I; HOUR S. IQ Forc'd from her suppliant posture, straight she saw The altar full prcpar'd : not there to blend Connubial vows, and light the bridal torch ; But at the moment, when mature in charms, While Hymen call'd aloud, to fall, e'en then, A father's victim, and the price to pay Of Grecian navies favour'd thus with £ales. — Such are the crimes that Superstition prompts ! The lines in Italics, both in the original and translation, are equally pathetic and strong. Some of the most pleasing passages in Lu- cretius are those in which he commemorates his poetical and philosophical predecessors y the two ensuing extracts have immortalized linnius and Empedocles : they are written with all the enthusiasm of admiration, and glow with, warmth and beauty. I cannot forbear, too, expressing a high sense of the merits of the version which is given con amore> with a feli- city, indeed, that leaves little to wish for. fgnoratur enim quae sit natura animal, Nata sit, an, contra, nascentibus insinuctur, Et simul intereat nobiscum morte dirempta, . An tenebras Orci visat, vastasque lacunas, An pecudes alias divinitns ir.sinuet se, C 2 ip LITERARY NO. I* Ennius ut noster cecinit, qui primus amseno Detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam, Per genteis Italas hominum quae clara clueret, Et si prceterea tamen esse Acherusia templa Ennius aeternis exponit versibus, edens : Quo neque permanent animae, neque.corpora nostra;- Sed quaedam simulacra modis pallentia rniris Unde sibi exortam semper-florentis Homeri Commemorat speciem, lacrumas et fundere salsas Ccepisse, et rerum natura.ni expandere dictis. Lib. i< lip Yet doubtful is the doctrine, and unknown Whether, coeval with th' external frame, The soul first lives when lives the body first, Or boasts a date anterior : whether doom'd To common ruin and one common grave, » Or thro' the gloomy shades, the lakes, the caves Of Erebus to wander : or, perchance, As Ennius taught, immortal Bard ! w ? hose brows Unfading laurels bound, and still whose verse All Rome recites entrane'd, perchance condemn'd The various tribes of brutes, with ray divine, To animate and quicken : tho' the bard, Jn deathless melody, has elsewhere sung Of Acherusian temples, where nor soul Nor body dwells, but images of men Mysterious shap'd, in wond'rous measure wan. Here Homer's spectre roam'd, of endless fame KO. I. HOURS* 21 Possest : his briny tears the bard survey'd, And drank the dulcet precepts from his lips. Quorum Acragantinus cum primis Empedocles est : Insula quern Triquetris terra-rum gessit in oris : Quam fluitans circum magnis amfractibus sequor Ionium glaucis aspergit virus ab undis : Angustoque fretu rapid Sam mare dividit undis Italic terra'i oras a finibus ejus : Hie est vasta Charybdis, et hie iEtnaea minantur Murmura flammarum rursum se conligere iras, Faucibus eruptos iterum ut vis evomat igneis : Ad ccelumque ferat flam ma 1 fulgura rursum ; Quae cum magna modis multis miranda videtur Gentibus humanis regio, visendaque fertur, Rebus opima bonis, multa munita virum vi : Nil tamen hoc habuisse *iro praeclarius in se, ISTec sanctum magis, et minim, carumque videtur, Carmina quin etiam divini pectoris ejus Vociferantur, et exponunt pros clara reperta ; Ut vix humana videatur stirpe creatus. Lib. i. 717, Thus sung Empedocles — -in honest fame First of his sect ; whom Agrigentum bore In cloud-capt Sicily. Its sinuous shores Th' Ionian main, with hoarse, unwearied wave Surrounds, and sprinkles with its briny dew : And, from the fair Italian fields, divides , Near gliding streams, by shadowy trees o'er-arch'd, Puch pomps we need not : such still less when spring- Leads forth her laughing train ; and the warm year Runts the green meads with roseate flowers profuse. On down rcclin'd, or wrapt in purple robe, The thirsty fever burns with heat as fierce A js when its victim lingers in a cot. Virgil in his Georgics, and Thomson in his Seasons, have imitated this delightful piece of moral scenery. No attempt, however, to copy the admirable original has succeeded better, perhaps, than the following by Lo- renzo de Afedic i : NO. IS ttO'U R S. Cerchi chi vuol, le pompe, e gli alti honor!, Le piazze, e tempii, e gli edition magai, Le delicie, il tesor, qual accompagni Mille duri pensier, iri'ilte dolori : Un verde praticel pien di bei fiori, Ua rivolo, che i'herba intorno bagm, Un augelletto, che d'amor si iagni, Acqueta molto meglio i nostri ardori : L'omhrose sclve, i sassi, e gli alti monti, Gli antri oscuri e le fere fuggitive, Quivi veggo io con pensier vaghi ; Qui me le toglie hor una, hor altra cosa. Seek he who will in grandeur to be blest, Place in proud halls, and splendid courts his joy For pleasure, or for gold, his arts employ, Whilst all his hours unnumbered cares molest, A little field inmative flow'rets drest, A rivulet in soft murmurs gliding by, A bird whose love-sick note salutes the sky, With sweeter magic lull my cares to rest : And shadowy woods, and rocks, and towering hi And caves obscure, and nature's free-born train Each in, my mind some pentle thought instils ; Ah gentle thoughts ! soon lost the city cares amoi 3 o The LITERART NO. I- Attamen inter se prostrati in gramine molli Propter aquas rivum sub ramis arboris altse of the poet, bring strongly to recollection two exquisite morsels in Gray : Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch A broader browner shade, j Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech O'er*canopies the glade, Beside some water's rushy brink, With me the Muse shall sit, and think At ease reclin'd *- There at the foot of yonder Hoddine: beech That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by. Many passages which powerfully appeal to the heart, and which may, indeed, be esteemed very striking instances of the pathetic, Lucre- tius has interspersed through his poem : and with one or two of these I shall decorate my pages. The lines which follow have been imitated by Spenser in his Fairy Queen. Nec ratione alia Proles cognoscere Matrem, Nec Mater posset Prolem : quod posse videnius, NO. I. K 0 *7 R S. 31 Nec minus atque homines inter se nota cluere. Nam saepe ante Deum vitukis delubra decora Turicremas propter mactatus concidit aras, Sanguinis exspirans calidum de pectore flu in en : At mater viridcis salens orbata peragrans, Linquit humi pedibus vestigia pressa bisulcis, Omnia convisens oculis loca, si que at usquam Conspicere amissum Fcetum : completque querelis Frondiferum nemus adsistens ; et crebra revisit Ad stabulum, desiderio perfixa Juvenci : Nec tenerae salices, atque herbae rore vigentes, Fluminaque ulla queunt sum mis labentia ripis, Oblectare anjmum, subitamque avertere curani : Nec Vitulorum alias species per pabula laeta Deri v a re queunt alio, curaque levare : Usque adeo quuldam proprium, notumqne requirit Lib. ii. 349, — — hence alone, Hence the fond mother knows her tender voun<>- % The tender young their mother : 'midst the brutes As clear discern'd, as man's sublimer race. — Thus oft. before the sacred shrine, perfum'cl With spires of frankincense, th' unwseting calf Pours, o'er the altar, from his breast profound, The purple flood of life : but, wand'ring wild O'er the green sward, the plaintive dam bereft Beats, with her hoof, the deep-indented dale , Each spot exploring, if, perchance, she still May trace her idol : thro' th 5 umbrageous grove j$ LIT E R A R ST NO. I c With well-known voice she- moans, and oft re-seeks, Urg'd by a mother's love, th' accustom'd stall. Nor shade for her, nor dew-distended grass, Nor stream soft-gliding down its banks anYupt, Yield aught of solace, or the carking care Avert that preys within : nor the gay young Of others soothe her o'er the joyous green.— So deep she longs, so lingers for her own. Descriptions of this kind impress us with a Very favourable idea of the tenderness and humanity of the poet. What can more deli- clously paint the ardours of domestic affection than the ensuing lines ? ' At jam non domus accipiet te beta ; neque uxor Optima, nec dulces occurrent oscula nati J^ra^ripere, et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent. * i Lib. iii. 907. • They have not escaped the pathetic Virgil : Jnterea dulces pendent circum oscula nati. Geo. ii. ^23, and the elegiac Muse of Gray has imbibed the very spirit of the Roman : 1 NO. I. HOURS. 33 For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care : No children run to }isp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. Thomson has thus depicted circumstances of a congenial nature : In vain for him the officious -wife prepares The fire fair-blazing and the vestment warm : In vain his little children, peeping out Into the mingling storm, demand their sire With tears of artless innocence. Alas ! Nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold, Nor friends, nor sacred home. Winter, 31c Vol. L D NUMBER II. ~_ j Lucretius Doctrina solers idem, clarusque Poeta, Antiqui vatis reparat solennia jura. Huic, simul ac rerum Primordia pandere tentat, Naturamque Deum, flammantia moenia mundi Extra et procedit, Musarum captus amore, Ipsa Venus, votis blanda, arridere videtur, Nyrapharumque Chorus ; tantus lepor insinuat se Verbis, tanta viri est Celebris vis insita menti. Dyer. As a considerable portion of the poem De Rerum Natura is occupied in the detail of argument, and the display of various and con- tending doctrines, it may be deemed necessary to adduce a specimen or two of the pure di- dactic style and manner of Lucretius, and of the success which has attended his Translator in this, perhaps his most difficult and laborious 3$ LITERARY NO. If. department.* Independent of perspicuity of arrangement and harmony of verse, Lucretius has rendered the most abstruse passages in his work pleasing, from the peculiar propriety of his expression, and the beauty of his meta- phors ; these excellencies have, in my opinion, been transferred with singular felicity to the .. english version, and the extracts 1 have now to bring forward, will probably induce the reader to concur in the encomium. Some philosophers of the present day have, with no little extravagance, inferred the per- fectibility of human nature ; they have even gone so far as to assert that the physical conse- quences of our existence, sleep and death, are no necessary result, but the effects of our own ignorance, and of acquired imbecility ; that as reason and knowledge advance, the agency of volition will be unlimited, and that ultimately the corporeal functions will be rendered com- pletely subservient to the powers of intellect. * The Monthly Reviewer, to whom I am indebted for an elaborate and candid critique on the first edition of the Literary Hours, being of opinion that a specimen of the translation should have been drawn from the more abstruse parts of Lu- cretius, I have in this paper carried his suggestion into exe- cution. too. Hi HOURS. „ 37 Lucretius has wisely rejected this day-dreani of philosophy, for, though he appear to believe that man may by his own efforts approach toward perfection, and emulate the gods in happiness, yet he has taken care to qualify this opinion by affirming that the seeds of vice and imperfection cannot be altogether eradicated ; that man, in fact* cannot shake off the imbeci- lities incident "to materiality, nor can he anni- hilate those passions which the deity has* for wise purposes, attached to our system. Sic Hominum genus est : quamvis Doctrina politds Constituat pariter quosdam, tamen ilia relinquit Naturne cnj usque Animas vestigia prima. Nec radicitus evelli mala posse; putandum 'st, Quin proclivius Hie iras decurrat ad acreis ; Ille metu citius paullo tentetur: at Illc Tertius accipiat quaedam clementms aequo. Inque aliis rebus multis differre necesse 'st Naturas hominum varias, moresque sequaceis: Quorum ego nunc nequeo caecas exponere causas, Nec reperire figurarum tot nominal quot sunt Principiis, uncie haec oritur variantia rerum; Illud in his rebus videor firmare potesse, Usque adeo Naturarum vestigia linqui Parvola, quae nequeat Ratio depellere dictis : Ut nihil impediat dignam Diis degere vitam. Lib. iii. 308. a 3 38 LITERARY NO. II. Thus varies man : tho' education oft Add its bland polish, frequent still we trace The first deep print of nature on the soul, Nor aught can all-erase it.* Hence, thro' time, This yields to sudden rage, to terror that, While oft a third beyond all right betrays A heart of mercy. Thus, in various mode?, The moral temper, and symphoneous life, Must differ ; thus from many a cause occult The sage can ne'er resolve, nor human speech Find phrase to explain ; so boundless, so complex The primal sources whence the variance flows ! Yet this the Muse may dictate, that so few The native traces wisdom ne'er can rase, Man still may emulate the gods in bliss. The doctrine of Pyrrho, which inculcates perfect scepticism, and discredits even the tes- timony of the senses, Lucretius held in utter and deserved contempt; and in the following passage he has, in a striking manner, laid open the absurdity of his tenets. It is a lesson still applicable at the commencement of the nine- teenth century; and may, with equal propriety, be addressed to the disciples of Berkley and >of Hume; for he who denies the existence of matter, must in almost every instance disbe- lieve the evidence of sense. NO. II. HOUR S. 39 Denique, nil sciri siquis putat, id quoque nescit, An sciri possit, .quoniam nihil scire fatetur : Hunc igitur contra mittam contendere caufam, Qui capite ipse suo in statuit Yestigia sese. Et tamen hoc quoque uti concedam, scire, at id ipfum Quaeram, quoin in rebus veri nil viderit ante, Unde seiat, quid sit scire, et nescire vicissim : Notitiam veri quae res, falsique crearit ; Et dubium ceno quae res difFerre probarit ? Invenies prirnis ah sensibus esse creatam Notitiam veri, neque sensus posse refelli : Nam majore fide debet reperirier illud, Sponte sua veris quod possit vincere falsa. Quid majore fide porro, quam sensus haberi Debet ? An ab sensu falso ratio orta valebit Dicere eos contra, quae tota ab sensibus orta *st ? Qui nisi sint veri, ratio quoque falsa fit omnis, An poterunt oculos aures reprehendere ? an aureis Tactus ? an hunc porro tactum sapor arguet oris ? An confutabunt nares, oculive revincent ? Non (ut opinor) ita 'st: Nam seorsum quoique potestas Divisa 'st : sua vis quoique 'st : ideoque necesse 'st, Et quod molle sit, et gelidum, fervensquc videri ; Et seorsum varios rerum sentire colores, Et qusecimque coloribu' sunt conjuncta, necesse 'st, Seorsus item sapor oris habet vim, seorsus odores Nascuntur, seorsum sonitus : ideoque necefle 'st, Non possint alios alii convincere sensus. D 4 40 LITERARY NO. l%* Nec porro potefunt ipsi reprendere sese, jEqua fides quoniam debebit semper haberi. Proinde, quod in quoque 'st his visum tempore, verum 'st. Lib. iv. 471. Who holds that nought is known, denies he knows E'en this, thus owning* that he nothing knows. With such I ne'er could reason, who, with face Retorted, treads the ground just trod before. Yet grant e'en this he knows, since nought exists Of truth in things, whence learns he what to know, Or what not know ? what things can give him first The notion crude of what is false or true ? What prove aught doubtful, or of doubt devoid ? Search, and this earliest notion thou wilt find Of truth and falsehood, from the senses drawn ; Nor aught can e'er refute them : for what once, By truths opposed, their falsehood can detect, Must claim a trust far ampler than themselves. Yet what than these an ampler trust can claim ? Can reason, born for sooth of erring sense, Impeach those senses whence alone it springs ? And which, if nlse, itself can ne'er fee true? Can sight correct the ears ? can ears the touch ? Or touch the tongue's fine flavour? or, o'er all, Can smell triumphant rise ? absurd the thought ! For every sense a separate function boasts, A power prescribed ; and hence or soft, or hard, NO. II. HOURS. 41 Or hot or cold, to its appropriate sense Alone appeals. The gaudy train of hues', With their light shades, appropriate thus alike Perceive we ; tastes appropriate powers possess ; Appropriate, sounds and odours ; and hence, too, One sense another ne'er can contravene, Nor e'en correct itself ; since every hour, In every act, each claims an equal faith : So what the senses notice must be true. It being my intention to quote from the sixth book some lines descriptive of a disease the most dreadful that afflicts humanity, I have chosen, on an intervening page, and with a view to gratify the mind by the charm of contrast, as well as to evince the exquisite beauty of the original and translation, to present a picture taken from the conclusion of the fifth book, where the poet is expatiating on the origin of man, and on the progress of the useful and elegant arts. It is a design which has all that amenity of conception, harmony of colouring, and delicacy of finish, which distinguish the pencil of Albani. At specimen sationis, et insitionis origo Ipsa fuit rerum primum Natura creatrix. * Arboribus quoniam bacae, giandesque caducas Tempestiya dabant pullorum examina subter. 4£ LITERARY NO. II. Unde etiam libitum f st stirpeis committerc ramis : Etnova defodere id terrain vinruka per agros: Indc aliam, atque ali?.m culruram dulcis agelli- Tentabant, fruetuf cue feros mansuescei e terra Cernebant indulgendo, blandeque .colendo. Inque dies magis in montem succedere sylvas Cogebant, inrn . que locum concedere cultis : Prata, lacus, rivos, segetes, vinetaque laeta Collibus, et campis ut haberent, atque olearum Cserula distinguens inter plaga currere posset Per tumulos, et convalleis, camposqce profusa : Ut nunc esse vides vario distincta iepore Omnia, quae pomis ritersita dulcibus ornant: Arbustisque tenent felioibus obsita circum. At liquidas avium voces imi&rier ore Ante fuit multo, quam Ice via carmina cantu Concelebrare homines i ossent, aureisque juvare. Et Zephyri cava per calamorum sibila primum Agresteis do cue re cavas inflare cicutas, Inde minutatim dulceis didicerc querelas, Tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum, Avia per nemora, ac sylvas saltusque reperta, Per loca pastorum deserta, atque otia dia : N Sic unurn quicquid paullatim protrahit setas In medium, ratioque in luminis eruit oras. , Lib. v. 1360. But nature's self the race of man first taught To sow, to graft ; for acorns ripe they saw, And purple berries, shattered from the trees, Soon yield a lineage like the trees themselves, 9 NO. II. hours. 43 Whence learn'd they, curious, thro' the stem mature To thrust the tender slip, and o'er the soil Plant the fresh shoots that first disorder'd sprang. Then, too, new cultures tried they, and, with joy, Mark'd the boon earth, by ceaseless care caress'd, Each vagrant fruitage sweeten, and enlarge. So loftier still, and loftier, up the hills Drove they the woodlands daily, broadening thus The cultur'd landscape, that the sight might trace Meads, corn-fields, rivers, lakes, and vineyards gay, O'er hills and mountains thrown ; while wound below The purple scene of olives ; as ourselves Still o'er the grounds mark every graceful hue Where blooms the dulcet apple, and around Trees of like lustre spread their loaded arms. And from the liquid warblhigs of the birds Learn'd they their first rude notes, ere music yet To the rapt ear had tun'd the measur'd verse; And zephyr, whispering thro' the hollow reeds, Taught the first swains the hollow reeds to sound : Whence woke they soon those tender-trembling tones Which the sweet pipe, when by the fingers prest, Pours o'er the hills, the vales, and woodlands wild, Haunts of lone Shepherds and the rural gods. So growing time points, ceaseless, something new, And human skill evolves it into day. The ravages of the plague, and the sym- ptoms of fever, form subjects little calculated for the decorations of the Muse: yet has Lucre- tius, by the magic of his poetry, rendered a 44 LITERARY NO. tfo description peculiarly susceptible of horror and disgust, productive of emotions the most sub- lime and pathetic. Thucydides had with great accuracy furnished the facts, being himself not only a spectator of, but a sufferer under this dreadful calamity. To the elegant and faith- ful detail of the Historian, the Roman Bard has added all that was necessary to convert the description into pure poetry. Than the pro- sopopoeia of Medicine, mussabat tacito Medicina tiniore, what can be more striking and terrific ? and the external symptoms of approaching dissolution, the fades Hippocratica, are depicted with equal harmony, fidelity, and spirit. A small portion of this admirable description (for to insert the whole would occupy too much space in a work of this kind) will convey no inade- quate idea of the general merits of the episode, Hzcc ratio quondam morborum, et mortiferaa- vis Finibus in Cecropiis funestos reddidit agros, Vastavitque vias, exhausk civibus urbem. Nam penitus veniens ./Egypt i e finibus ortus, Aera permensus inultum, camposque ; natauteis, Incubuit tandem populum Pandionis omnem. inde catervatim morbo mortique dabantur. Principle, caput incensum fervore gerebant : Et dupliceis oculos suffusa luce rubenteis. NO. II. HOURS. 45 Sudahant etlam fauces, intrinsecus atra?, Sanguine, et ulceribus vocis via septa co'ibat ; Atque animi interpres manabat lingua cruore, Debilitata malis, motu gravis, aspera tactu. Necrequies erat ulla mali, defessa jacebant Corpora, mussabat tacito Medicina timbre, Quippe patentia quom totiens, ardentia morbis, Lumina versarent oculorum expertia somno, Multaque prseterea mortis turn signa dabantur, Perturbata animi mens in moerore, metuque, Triste supercilium, furiosus voltus, et acer, Sollicitse porro plenaeque sonoribus aures, "Creber spiritus, aut ingens, raroque coortus, Sudorisque madens per collum, splendidus humo^ Tenuia sputa, minuta, croci contineta colore, Salsaque per sauceis rauca vix edita tusse : In manibus vero nervi trahier, tremere artus : A pedibusque minutatim succedere frigus Jsfon dubitabat, item ad supremum denique tempus Compressae nares, nasi primoris acumen Tenue, cavati oculi, cava tempora, frigida pcllJs, Duraque, inhorrebat rictum, frons tenta meabat, Nec nimio rigida post artus morte jacebant : Octavoque fere candenti lumine solis, Aut etiam nona reddebant lampade vitam. Lib. vi. H%6. i A plague like this, a tempest big with fate, Once ravaged Athens, and her sad domains; Unpeopled all her city, and her paths 46 LITERARY NO. II. Swept with destruction. For amid the realms Begot of Egypt, many a mighty tract Of ether travers'd, many a flood o'erpast, At length here fixt it ; o'er the hapless house Of Pandion hovering, andth' astonish'd race Dooming by thousands to disease and death. The head first flam'd with inward heat, the eyes Redden'd with fire suffus'd ; the purple jaws Sweated with bloody ichor ; ulcers foul Crept o'er the vocal path, obstructing close ; And the prompt tongue, expounder of the mind, Overflowed with gore, enfeebled in its post, Hoarse in its accent, harsh beneath the touch.— — r Nor e'er relax'd the sickness ; the rack'd frame Lay all-exhausted, and, in silence dread, Appall'd, and doubtful, mus'd the Healing Art. For the broad eye-balls, burning] with disease, Iloll'd in full stare, for ever void of sleep, And told the pressing danger; nor alone Told it, for many a kindred symptom throng'd. The mind's pure spirit, all-despondent, rav'd ; The brow severe ; the visage fierce and wild ; The ears distracted, fill'd with ceaseless sounds ; Frequent the breath ; or ponderous oft and rare \ The neck with pearls bedew'd of glistening sweat ; Scanty the spittle, thin, of saffron dye, Salt, with hoarse cough scarce labour'd from the throat. The limbs each trembled ; every tendon twitch'd Spread o'er the hands ; and from the feet extreme O'er all the frame a gradual coldness crept, NO. ir. hours. 47 Then, towards the last, the nostrils close-collaps'd; The nose acute ; eyes hollow ; temples scoopM 5 Frigid the skin, rea acted; o'er the mouth A ghastly grin ; the shrivell'd forehead tense; The limbs outstretch'd, for instant death prepared, Till with the eighth descending sun, for few Reach'd his ninth lustre, life for ever ceas'd. Were it not that the description of the plague by Thucydides would occupy too much room, its insertion here, as an object of comparison with the Roman Bard, might gratify the curious; the concluding lines, how- ever, of this last quotation from Lucretius will equally prove the poet's faithful attention to nature and his models; they are a transcript from the celebrated passage in Hippocrates, who has admirably thrown into one picture the various symptoms of dissolution, symptoms " well known to those that tend the dying." Xohoi r'm cotmv d7nrpoc^iVOi' kqcl to Sip^oc to TTi^ TO fAZTCOTTOVy &xXy\pQV TS HOll 7T£p tlzJ&fAWOV : and describe him as under the semblance of an angelic youth, such as he paints him in his dialogue of Le Messagiero. Manso particularly mentions, that once Tasso, angry at his incredulity, told him that he should see the spirit with his own eyes. Accordingly next day, when they were talking together and sitting by the fire, Tasso suddenly darted his eyes to a window in the room, and sat so intent, that, when Manso spoke to him, he returned no sort of answer. At last he turned to him, and said, c Behold the friendly spirit, who is courteously come to converse with me ; look at him, and perceive the truth of my words/ Manso immediately ihrew his eyes toward the spot - y but with his keenest vision could see nothing, but the rays of the sun shining through the window into the chamber. While he was thus staring, Tasso had entered into lofty discourse with the spirit, as he perceived from his share of the dialogue : that of the spirit was not audible NO* III. HOURS. 6i to him ; but he solemnly declares that the dis- course was so grand and marvellous, and con- tained such lofty things, expressed in a most unusual mode, that he remained in ecstacy, and did not dare to open his mouth so much as to tell Tasso that the spirit was not visible to him. In some time, the spirit being gone, as Manso could judge, Tasso turned to him with a smile, and said, he hoped he was now convinced. To which Manso replied, that he had, indeed, heard wonderful things ; but had seen nothing. Tasso said, c Perhaps you have heard and seen more than he then paused ; and Manso seeing him in silent me- ditation, did not care to perplex him with further questions."* Had Tasso not formed extravagant schemes of happiness and fame, which are seldom, if ever realized, and had corrected the fervour of an imagination too prone to admit, the preter- natural and strange, by cultivating those sci- ences which depend upon demonstrative evi- dence, or by mingling more with the world, and discriminating its various characters and foibles, the integrity of his mind had, most * Vide Letters of Literature, p. 379, LITER Ak V NO. ilh probably, been preserved. Shakspeare pos- sessed in a far superior degree, if I may be allowed the term, the powers of superhuman creation, and no poet ever enjoyed such art unlimited dominion over the fears and super- stitions of mankind. Yet the acuteness, the inexhaustible variety of his genius, his talents for humour, and his almost intuitive penetra^ tion into the follies and vices of his species* enabled him to avoid, in a great measure, that credulity which his wdld, terrific, yet delight- ful and consistent fictions^ almost riveted Upon others. Milton too had a peculiar pre-* dilection for traditionary tales, and legendary lore, and, in his early youth, spent much time in reading romantic narratives ; but the deep and varied erudition which distinguished his career, for no man in Europe, at that time, possessed a wider field of intellect, sufficiently protected him from their delusive influence* though, to the latest period of life, he still re- tained much of his original partiality. Ossian, however, that melancholy but sublime Bard of other times, seems to have given implicit cre- dit to the superstitions of his country, and his poems are, therefore, replete with a variety of immaterial agents j but these are of a kind 4 350. Hfc H OtRS. <>j rather calculated to soothe and support the mind, than to shake and harrow it, as the go- thic, with malignant and mysterious potency. In this age, when science and literature have spread so extensively, the heavy clouds of superstition have been dispersed, and have assumed a lighter and less ibrmkhWe hue; for though the tales of Walpole, Reeve, and Radcliffe, or the poetry of Wieland,* Burger, and Lewis, still powerfully arrest at- tention, and keep an ardent curiosity alive, yet is their machinery, by no means, an object of popular belief, nor can it, I should hope, now lead to dangerous credulity, as when in the times of Tasso, Shakspeare, and even Milton, witches and wizards, spectres and fairies, were nearly as important subjects of faith as the most serious doctrines of religion. Yet have we had one melancholy instance, and toward the middle of the eighteenth cen* * The Oberon of this exquisite poet, which, in sportive play of fancy, may vie with the Muse of Shakspeare, and which, in the conduct of its fable, is superior to any work extant, richly merits an english dress. It is said that the late Mr. Sixt of Canterbury left a translation of this Epic. If it be well exe- cuted, it would be a highly valuable present to the public. 64 LITERARY NO. III. tury, where disappointment, operating upon enthusiasm, lias induced effects somewhat simi- lar to those recorded of the celebrated Italian. In the year 1756 died our lamented Collins, one of our most exquisite poets, and of whom, perhaps, without exaggeration it may be as- serted, that he partook of the credulity and enthusiasm of Tasso, the magic wildness of Shakspeare, the sublimity of Milton, and the pathos of Ossian. He had early formed san- guine expectations of fame and applause, but reaped nothing but penury and neglect, and stung with indignation at the unmerited treat- ment his productions had met with, he burnt the remaining copies with his own hands. His Odes to Fear, on the Poetical Character, to Evening, the Passions, and on the Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland, strongly mark the bias of his mind to all that is awefullv wild and terrible. His address to Fear, Dark Power ! w ith shuclcTring meek submitted thought Be mine to read the visions old Which thy awakening bards have told : And, lest thou meet my blasted view, Hold each strange tale devoutly true. SO. lit. HOURS. 65 Was prompted by what he actually felt, for, like Tasso, he was, in some measure, a convert to the imagery he drew ; and the beautiful lines in which he describes the Italian, might, with equal propriety, be applied to himself: Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind Believ'd the magic wonders which he sung.* His powers, however, in exciting the tender emotions, were superior to Tasso's % and, in pathetic simplicity, nothing, perhaps* can ex- ceed his Odes to Pity, on the Death of Colonel Ross, on the Death of Thomson, and his Dirge \ in Cymbeline, which abound with * Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands. f The beautiful and tender imagery, in a stanza of this jittle dirge — The Red-breast oft at evening hours Shall kindly lend his little aid, With hoary moss and gathered flowers, To dfeck the ground where thou art laid. — has been so much a favourite with the poets, that I am tempted to throw a few of their elegant descriptions into the form of a note. In the Anthologj*3, a somewhat similar idea is thus ex* pressed in the Epitaph on Timon i Nor print the feather'd warbler in the spring His little footsteps lightly cn my grave. Wakefield, Vol, L F 66 LITERARY NO. Ill* passages that irresistibly make their way to the heart. He who could feel, with so much sensibility, the sorrows and misfortunes of others, and could pour the plaint of woe with such har- monious skill, was soon himself to bean object Horace has a passage of still greater similitude with regard to the wood -pigeon : Me fabulosas Vulture in Appulo Altricis extra limen Apuliae, Ludo fatigatumque somno, Fronde novfx puerum palumbes Tcxere. . Carm. lib. iii. od. 4. And we all remember the ballad of our infancy, and which, perhaps, more immediately gave rise to succeeding imitations s And Robin Red-breast carefully Did cover them with leaves. Shakspcare has, in the following lines of his Cymbeline, ten^ derly alluded to this bird, and which certainly suggested to Collins the stanza we have quoted : - — With fairest flowers, Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, Til sweeten thy sad grave; Thou shalt not lack The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose j nor The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins 5 no, nor The leaf of eglantine, whom nor to slander Out-sweeten'd not thy breath : the Raddock would, With charitable bill, bring thee all this; Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when rlowers are nons, To winter-gown thy corse.—- NO. III. HOUR So 67 of extreme compassion. His anxiety and dis- tress, rendered doubly poignant by a very splendid imagination, in the event produced unconquerable melancholy, and occasional fits of frenzy, and, under the pressure of these af- flictions, which gradually increased, perished one of the sweetest of our poets, and who ever approached the lyre with a mind glowing with inspiration. Drayton also thus notices it : Covering with moss the dead's unclosed eye, The little Red-breast teacheth charitie. The Muse of Gray, too, has honoured it with a tribute worthy its tender assiduity s There scattered oft, the earliest of the year, By hands unseen, are showers of violets found : The Red-breast loves to build and warble there, And little footsteps lightly print the ground. And lastly Mr. Hole, in his epic romance of Arthur, or the Northern Enchantment, is not excelled by any of his predeces- sors .in commemorating the charitable offices of this favourite : ... Now Cador's corse he view'd, With hoary moss and faded leaves bestrew'd. „ In days of old, not yet did we invade The harmless tenants of the woodland shade, The crimson-breasted warbler o'er the slain, While frequent rose his melancholy strain, With pious care, 'twas all he could, supplied The funeral rites, by ruthless man denied, 68 LITERARY NO. HI, On the monument lately erected to his iliemory at Chichester, and executed with admirable taste by the ingenious Flaxman, the poet is represented as just recovered from a fit of frenzy, and in a calm and reclining posture, seeking refuge from his misfortunes in the consolations of the Gospel, while his lyre, and one of the first of his poems, lie neglected on the ground. Above, are two beautiful figures of Love and Pity intwined in each others arms; and beneath, the follow- ing elegant and impressive epitaph from the pen of Mr. Hayley : Ye, who the merits of the dead revere, Who hold misfortune sacred, genius dear, Regard this tomb, where Collins' hapless name Solicits kindness with a double claim ; Tho' nature gave him, and tho' Science taught The Fire of Fancy, and the reach of Thought, •Severely doom'd to penury's extreme, He pass'd, in madd'ning pain, life's feverish dream; While rays of genius only serv'd to show The thickening horror and exalt his woe. Ye walls that echo'd to his frantic moan, Guard the due records of this grateful stone; Strangers to him, enamour'd of his lays, This fond memorial to his talents raise. For this the ashes of a bard require, no. nr. hours. 69 Who touch'd the tenderest notes of Pity's lyre ; Who join'd pure Faith to strong poetic powers, Who, in reviving Reason's lucid hours, Sought on one book his troubled mind to rest, And rightly deem'd the book of God the best. The same warm and eager expectations of immortality and fame, associated with similar fervour, and creative energy of genius, and accompanied with still greater ignorance of mankind, led the unhappy Chatterton to sui- cide. The fairy visions he had drawn were blasted by the hand of poverty and neglect, and conscious of the powers which animated his bosom, and despising that world which had failed to cherish them, and of which he had formed so flattering but so delusive an idea, in a paroxysm of wounded pride, and indignant contempt, beheld in the grave alone a shelter from affliction. O ill-starr'd Youth, whom Nature formM in vain. With powers on Pindus' splendid height to reign ! O dread example of what pangs await Young genius ftruggling with malignant fate ! What could the Muse, who nr'd thy infant frame With the rich promise of poetic fame ; Who taught thy hand its magic art to hide, And mock the insolence of Critic pride ; ?3 7$ LITERARY NO. III. What could her unavailing cares oppose, To save her darling from his desperate foes; From pressing W ant's calamitous controul, And Pride, the fever of the ardent soul ? Ah, see, too conscious of her failing power, She quits her Nursling in his deathful hour ! In a chill room, within whose wretched wall No cheering voice replies to Misery's call ; Near a vile bed, too crazy to sustain Misfortune's wasted limbs, convuls'd with pain, On the bare floor, with heaven-directed eyes, The hapless youth in speechless horror lies ; The poisonous vial, by distraction drain'd, Rolls from his hand, in wild contortion strain'd, Pale with life-wasting pangs, its dire effect, And stung to madness by the world's neglect, He, in abhorrence of the dangerous art, Once the dear idol of his glowing heart, Tears from his Harp the vain, detested wires, And in the frenzy of despair expires ! H^YLEY. He, therefore, who early possesses the cha- racteristics of genius, and is desirous of placing before the public eye its more happy effusions, ,» should be assiduously taught the probability of ridicule, or neglect. Let not his wish to claim admiration be repressed, but let him be trained to expect it from a chosen few, and to despise the malignity, or the apathy of the many, 4 no. nr. hours. 71 The most beautiful works of imagination are the least understood ; nor can an author, until he become fashionable from the recommenda- tion of a few leading critics, meet with general applause, nor, indeed, should he either hope for, or value it. Of the multitudes who pre- tend to admire a Shakspeare, or a Milton, not one in a thoufand has any relish or proper conception of the author, but merely echo the opinion that reaches them, though, by a com- mon operation of vanity, they applaud their own discernment and taste. In general, the most estimable compositions are written for posterity, and are little valued at the moment of their production. The Gerusalemme Libe- rata of Tasso, the Paradise Lost of Milton, and the Poems of Collins, bear testimony to the truth of the assertion. It is, also, highly necessary to guard against those delusions which an exclusive study of works of imagination is apt to generate in a mind predisposed to poetic combination. Let the young poet be properly initiated into life, and led to mingle the severer studies with the vivid colourings of the muse, and neither dis- appointment, nor melancholy will then, pro* f 4 72 LITERARY HOtJRS. NO. HI, bably, intrude upon his useful and rational enjoyments, To correct the sanguine expectations which young authors are too apt to form, or to divest of their too enchanting hues the dangerous and delusive pictures sketched in early life, may have its use ; but it is little to be apprehended, in the present day, that the wild workings of poetic imagination should lead to that obli- quity of idea, which may terminate in derange-, ment. Philosophy and science have now taken too deep root for such credulity to recur, nor is the general character of our poetry that of enthusiasm. What we have said may, how- ever, account for the mental irregularities of 3, Tasso and a Collins, though, perhaps, little applicable or essential to any modern bard, The subject, nevertheless, is curious, and will, probably, be thought not altogether destitute of entertainment. NUMBER IV. Can music's voice, can beauty's eye, Can painting's glowing hand supply A charm so suited to my mind, As blows this hollow gust of wind ; As drops this little weeping rill, Soft trickling down the moss-grown hill ; While thro' the west where sinks the crimson day, Meek twilight slowly sails, and waves her banners grey ? Mason. To meliorate the sufferings of unmerited calamity, to enable us to bear up against the pressure of detraction, and the wreck of ties the most endearing, benevolent Providence hath wisely mingled, in the cup of sorrow, drops of a sweet and soothing nature. If, when the burst of passion dies away ; if, when the violence of grief abates, rectitude of conduct, ajxi just feeling be possessed, recollection 74 LITERARY NO. IV, points not the arrow of misfortune, it adds not the horrors of guilt ; no, it gives birth to sen- sations the most pleasing, sweet, though full of sorrow, melancholy, yet delightful, which soften and which calm the mind, which heal, and pour balm into the wounded spirit. The man, whose efforts have been liberal and indus- trious, deserving, though unfortunate, whom poverty and oppression, whom calumny and ingratitude have brought low, feels, whilst con- scious innocence dilates his breast, that secret gratulation, that self-approving and that honest pride which fits him to sustain the pangs of want and of neglect ; he finds, amid the bit- terest misfortunes, that virtue still can whis* per peace, can comfort, and can bid the wretched smile. Thus even where penury and distress put on their sternest features, and where the necessaries of life are, with difficulty, pro- cured, even here are found those dear emotions which arise from purity of thought and action ; emotions from whose influence no misery can take away, from whose claim to possession no tyrant can detract, which the guilty being de- prived of, sicken and despair, and which he who holds fast, is comparatively blest. NO. IV. HOURS, % J$ But where the mind has been liberally and elegantly cultivated, where much sensibility and strength of passion are present, and the misfortunes occurring, turn upon the loss of some tender and beloved connexion, in this case, what may be called the luxury of grief is more fully and exquisitely displayed. That mild and gentle sorrow, which, in the bosom of the good, and of the feeling, succeeds the strong energies of grief, is of a nature so sooth- ing and grateful, so friendly to the soft emo- tions of the soul, that those, whose friendship, or whose love, the hand of fate has severed, delight in the indulgence of reflections which lead to past endearment, which, dwelling on the virtues, the perfections of the dead, breathe the pure spirit of melancholy enthusiasm* ask the faithful youth Why the cold urn of her, whom long he loved, So often fills his arms, so often draws His lonely footsteps at the silent hour To pay the mournful tribute of his tears ? Oh, he will tell thee, that the wealth of worlds Should ne'er seduce his bosom to forego That sacred hour, when, stealing from the noise Of care and envy 5 sweet remembrance soothes, ^6 LITERARY >~Q. iV> With virtue's kindest looks, his aching breast, And turns his tears to rapture !— — — Akenside. Here, every thing which tends to soften and refine the mind, to introduce a pensive train of thought, and call the starting tear, will long and ardently be cherished. Music, the solace of the mourner, that food of tender passion, which, while it sweetly melts the soul, corrects each harsh and painful feeling, will ever to the wretched be a source of exquisite sensation. Those writers who have touched the finest chords of pity, who, mingling the tenderest simplicity with the strongest emotions of the heart, speak the pure language of nature, have elegantly drawn the effects of music on the mind 5 the Fonrose of Marmontelle, the Maria of Sterne, and the Julia de lloubigne of Mac- kenzie, but more especially the Minstrel of Beattie, sweetly evince this delightful and be- witching melancholy which so blandly steals upon the children of sorrow* That the contemplation of nature^ of the various features of the sublime and of the tfautiful, often lead to reflections of a solemn NO. IV. ff OtfR S. J j and serious cast, is a circumstance well esta- blished ; and on this account, the possession of romantic and sequestered scenery is a requisite highly wished lot by those who mourn the loss of a beloved object. The gloomy majesty of antique wood, the awful grandeur of o'erhang- ing rock, the frequent dashing of perturbed water, throw a sombre tint around, which suits the language of complaining grief. Perhaps to the wild and picturesque beauties of Val- chiusa we owe much of the poetry, much of the pathos of Petrarch, the perpetuity of whose passion for Laura was, without doubt, greatly strengthened by such a retreat ; where, free from interruption, he could dwell upon the remembrance of her virtue and her beauty, could invoke her gentle spirit, and indulge the sorrows of his heart. How strongly its roman- tic scenery affected him, how vividly it brought to recollection those long-lost pleasures when, in the company of his beloved Laura, he wan- dered amid its friendly shades, and hung upon the music of her lips, every reader of sensi- bility will judge from the following beautiful translation of the 261st sonnet, transcribed from an anonymous Essay on the Life anc| Character of Petrarch. — ; LITERARY NO. IV, ON THE PROSPECT OF VALCHIUSA. Thou lonely vale, where in the fleeting years Of tender youth I breath'd my am'rous pain ; Thou brook, whose silver stream received my tears, Thy murmurs joining to my sorrowing strain, I come, to visit all my former haunts again ! O green-clad hills, familiar to my sight ! O well-known paths where oft I wont to rove, Musing the tender accents of my love ! Long use and sad remembrance now invite, Again to view the scenes which once could give de- light. Yes, ye are still the same— To me alone Your charms decay for she, who to these eyes Gave nature beauty, now for ever gone, Deep in the silent grave a mouldering victim lies ! Pathetic, almost to pain, must have been the impression on the susceptible mind of Petrarch; and, indeed, on every mind alive to pity and struggling with distress, such scenery will ever produce sensations of a similar kind : how de- lightful to the bosom of sadness, are the still, sweet beauties of a moon-light evening ! and who, that has a heart to feel, is not struck by the soft and tender scenery of a Claude, whose no. iff, H 0 u RS - 79 setting suns diffuse such an exquisite melan- choly, and whose shadowy fore-grounds drop such a grateful gloom, as are peculiarly capti- vating to the mind of taste and sensibility ! But nothing will better prove how greatly avaricious the soul of Petrarch was of this mingled perception of pleasure and of pain, this luxury of grief, than presenting the reader with a note translated from the margin of a manuscript of Virgil, preserved in the Am~ brosian Library at Milan, and formerly in Petrarch's possession. It is enriched with many latin annotations in the poet's hand- writing, and on the first page is the following interesting passage : f c Laura, illustrious by the virtues she pos- sessed, and celebrated, during many years, by my Verses, appeared to my eyes for the first time, on the sixth day of April, in the year thirteen hundred and twenty-seven, at Avig- non, in the church of St. Claire, at six o'clock in the morning. I was then in my early youth. In the same town, on the same day, and at the same hour, in the year thirteen hundred and forty-eight, this light, this sun, withdrew So LITERARY N0« IV, from the world. I was then at Verona, igno* rant of the calamity that had befallen me. A letter I received at Parma-, from my Ludovico, on the nineteenth of the following month, brought me the cruel information. Her body, $o beautiful, so pure, was deposited on the day of her death, after vespers, in the church of the Cordeliers. Her soul, as Seneca has said of Africanus, I am confident* returned to heaven, from whence it came. " For the purpose of often dwelling on the sad remembrance of so severe a loss, I have written these particulars in a book that comes frequently under my inspection. I have thus prepared for myself, a pleasure mingled with pain. My loss ever present to my memory, will teach me, that there is now nothing in this life which can give me pleasure — That it is now time I should renounce the world, since the chain which bound me to it, with so tender an attachment, is broken. Nor will this, with the assistance of Almighty God, be difficult. My mind, turning to the past, will set before me all the superfluous cares that have engaged me ; all the deceitful hopes that I have enter-* NO. IV. HOURS. 3i tained, "and the unexpected and afflicting consequences of all my projects." But, independent of a train of thought produced by adverse circumst ances, scenery of a stupendous aiid solitary cast will ever have., upon a person of acute feeling* somewhat of a similar effect ; it will dispose to contemplation, it will suggest a wish for seclusion, a romantic and visionary idea of happiness abstracted from society. Those who possess a genius, of which imagination is the strongest characteristic, are of all others the most susceptible of enthusiasm ; and, if placed amid scenes of this description, and where civilization has made little progress, they will eventually be the sons of poetry, melancholy, and superstition. To these causes we may ascribe the peculiarities of Ossian, his deep and uninterrupted gloom, his wild but impressive mythology. I do not, indeed, deny, that even in the most polished periods of society much of this cast of mind may be observed ; it is ever, I think, attendant upon genius, but, at the same time, so tempered by the sober tints of science and philosophy, that it seldom breaks in upon the province of judg* Vol. I. G SZ LITERARY IsO. I W mentand right ratiocination. The melancholy of Milton, Young, and Gray,, was so repressed by the chastening hand of reason and educa- tion as never to infringe upon the duties of life ; the spirit, the energy of Milton's compre- hensive soul, the rational and sublime piety of Young, the learning and morality of Gray, powerfully withheld the accession of a state of mind so inimical to the rights of society. I speak here, as I have before hinted, of a con- stitutional bias of mind, not of that deep sor- row which arises from the loss of a beloved relative, or from the unmerited pressure of adversity. In addition to what has been observed con- cerning the effect of scenery, let it be added, that those whom misfortune has bowed down, and who have fled into retirement to indulge the luxury of grief, that those take peculiar pleasure in being witness to the decay and sad vicissitudes of nature, that the commencement and decline of autumn, the ravages of winter, the fury of the mountain torrent, the howling of the midnight storm, the terrors of a sultry noon, the burst of thunder, and the flash of lightning, are to them sources of sympathy 2, KO* IV. HOURS. 83 -and consolation. What sublime and pensive images may they not derive from the melan- choly sighing of the gale* particularly from *' that pause/' observes Mr. Gray, " as the gust ^is recollecting itself, and rising upon the ear in a shrill and plaintive note, like the swell of an iEolian harp. There is nothing/' adds he, * c so like the voice of a spirit." And, indeed, however inconsiderable, in itself, such a sound may be, yet, from the association of ideas, and from the general knowledge of its being the presage of a storm, it derives a degree of awful and impressive grandeur, admirably adapted to the nurture of reflection. In such a situation as this, every thing is in unison with their feel- ings, each object seems to suffer; and to a mind pregnant with images of distress, little is wanting to immediate personification 5 they may exclaim, in the beautiful and descriptive language of Miss Seward 5 3 Twas here, e'en here ! where now I sit reclin'd, And winter's sighs sound hollow in the wind ; Loud, and more loud, the blast of evening raves, And strips the oaks of their last ling'ring kaves, The eddying foliage in the tempest flies* And fills with duskier gloom the thick'ning skies* Q Z §4 LIT E R A R Y NO. I « > Red sinks the sun behind the howling hill, And rushes t with hoarse stream, the mountain rill, And now with ruffling billows, cold and pale, Runs swoln and dashing down the lonely vale ; While to these tearful eyes, Grief's faded form Sits on the cloud, and sighs amid the storm. That this amiable and tender sorrow so- fre- quently the concomitant of the best disposition and principles, and the certain test of a gene- rous and susceptible heart, that this should be so often carried to an extreme, should so often militate against our social and domestic duties, is an event which merits the most serious atten- tion. It is not however uncommon \ he, to whom these sweet but melancholy sensations have been once known, will not easily be per- suaded to relinquish them ; he shuns societ} 7 , and, dwelling on the deprivations he has. suf- fered, seeks to indulge, what, when thus cherished, is but childish imbecility. It is the more necessary, perhaps, that an error of this kind be corrected, as, from the fashionable i age cf affected sensibility, many otherwise would suppose themselves evincing an undoubted claim to feelings " tremblingly alive/' by a mode of conduct which convicts them of folly and hypocrisy. KO. IV. HOURS. 8A At the same time that the author reprobates the excess of grief, as detracting from cur public and our private duties, he, by no means, wishes to restrain those pensive and those soft emotions which arise from just affection for departed excellence, or from the consciousness of rectitude of conduct and unmerited adver- sity; on the contrary, he is their advocate ; they support us under our misfortunes, they afford us a luxury most soothing to the mind : but let us take care it degenerates not into weakness, that it leads not to unprofitable solitude: for, as hath been justly observed, k is not good for man to be alone. " ■ NUMBER V. E'quanto a dir qual era, e cosa dura, Questa " valle" selvaggia ed aspra e forte Che nel pensier rinnuova la paura.— Tanco e amara, che pocco e phi morte : Ma per trattar del ben, ch'i vi trovai, Diro del altre cose, ch'i v'ho scorte. Dante. The place I know not, where I chanc'd to rove ; It was a " vale " so wild, it wounds me sore But to remember with what ills I strove : Such still my dread, that death is little more. But I will tall the good which there I found : High things "'twas there my fortune to explore. Hayley. It was evening, when Wolkmar and his dog, almost spent with fatigue, descended one of the mountains in Switzerland 5 the sun was dilated in the horizon, and threw a tint of rich crimson over the waters of a neighbouring lake 3 on G 4 88 LITERARY KO. Y« each side rocks of varied form, their green heads glowing in the beam, were swarded with shrubs that hung feathering from their sum- mits, and, at intervals, was heard the rushing of a troubled stream. Amid this scenery, our traveller, far from any habitation, wearied, and uncertain of the road, sought for some excavation in the 'rock, wherein he might repose himself; and having at length discovered such a situation, fell fast asleep upon some withered leaves. His dog sat watching at his feet, a small bundle of linen and a staff were placed beside him, and the red rays of the declining sun, having pierced through the shrubs that concealed the retreat, gleamed on the languid features of his beloved master. And long be thy rest, O Wolkmar ! may sleep sit pleasant on thy soul ! Unhappy man ! war hath estranged thee from thy native village ; war, unnatural war, snatched thee from thy Fanny and her infant. Where art thou, best of wives? thy Wolkmar lives! report deceived thee, Daughter of affliction ! fpr the warrior rests not in the narrow house. NO. V. HOURS. fty Thou fled'st ; thy beauty caught the eye of power ; thou fled'st with thy infant and thy aged father. Unhappy woman ! thy husband seeketh thee over the wilds of Switzerland. Long be thy rest, O Wolkmar ! may sleep sit pleasant on thy soul ! Yet not long did Wolkmar rest ; starting, he beheld the dog, who, seizing his coat, had shook it with violence ; and having thoroughly awakened him, whining, licked his face, and sprang through the thicket. Wolkmar, eagerly following, discerned at some distance a man gently walking down the declivity of the op- posite hill, and his own dog running with full speed towards him. The sun yet threw athwart the vale rays of a bldod-red hue, the sky was overcast, and a few big round drops rustled through the drooping leaves. Wolkmar sat him down; the dog now fawned upon the man, then bounding ran before him. The curiosity of Wolkmar was roused ; he rose to meet the stranger, who, as he drew near, ap- peared old, very old, his steps scarce support- ing with a staff ; a blue mantle was wrapped around him, and his hair and beard white as snow, and waving to the breeze of the hilh. $0 * LITERARY NO. V. received from beneath a dark cloud, the last deep crimson of the setting sun, The dog now ran wagging his tail, first to his master, and then to the stranger, leaping upon each with marks of the utmost rapture, till too rudely expressing his joy, the old man tottering fell at the foot of a blasted beech, that stood at the bottom of the hill. Wolkmar hastened to his relief, and had just reached the spot, when starting back, he exclaimed, 46 My father, O my father !" Gothre, for so the old man was called, saw and knew his son ; a smile of ecstasy lighted up his features, a momentary colour flushed his cheek ; his eyes beamed transport through the waters that suffused them ; and stretching forth his arms, he faintly uttered, w My beloved son f ' Nature could no more : the bloom upon his withered cheek fled fast away ; the dewy luptre of his eye grew dim ; the throbbing of his heart oppressed him ; and, straining W olkmar with convulsive energy, the last long breath of aged Gothre fled jpold across the cheek of his son. The night grew dark and unlovely; the moon struggled to appear, and by fits her pale light NO. V. HOURS. 91 streamed across the lake 5 a silence deep and terrible prevailed, unbroken but by a wild shriek, that at intervals died along the valley. Wolkmar lay entranced upon the dead body of his father, the dog stood motionless by his side ; but, at last alarmed, he licked their faces, and pulled his master by the coat, till having in vain endeavoured to awaken them, he ran. howling dreadfully along the valley ; the demon of the night trembled on his hill of storms, and the rocks returned a deepening echo! Wolkmar at length awoke ; a cold sweat trickled over his forehead ; every muscle shook with horror; and, kneeling by the body of Gothre, he wept aloud. " Where is my Fanny i" he exclaimed ; " Where shall I find her ! oh that thou hadst told me she yet lived, good old man ! if alive, my God ! she must be near : the night is dark, these mountains are unknown to me." As he spoke, the illumined edge of a cloud shone on the face of Gothre, a smile yet dwelt upon his features ; u Smilest thou, my father?" said Wolkmar; u I feel it at my heart ; all shall yet be well." The night again grew dark, and Wolkmar, retiring a few 93 LITERARY NO, V. paces from liis father, threw himself on the ground. He had not continued many minutes in this situation, before the distant sound of voices struck his ear; they seemed to issue from dif- ferent parts of the valley ; two or three evi~ dently approached the spot where Gothre lay, and the name of Gothre was at length loudly and frequently repeated. Wo 1 k mar, starting from the ground, sighed with anxiety and ex- pectation ; leaning forward, he would have listened, but the beating of his heart appalled him. The dog who, at first alarmed, had crept to his master's feet, began now to bark with vehemence ; suddenly the voices ceased, and Woikmar thought he heard the soft and quick tread of people fast approaching. At this moment, the moon burst from behind a dark cloud, and shone full on the dead body of Gothre. A shrill shriek pierced the air, and a young woman rushing forward fell on the body of Gothre. " Oh, my Billy I" she exclaimed to a little boy, who ran up to her out of breath, " see your beloved Gothre ! he is gone for ever, gone to heaven, and left NO. V. HO U RS, 93 us. O my poor child!" clasping tire boy, who cried most bitterly, ft what shall we do without him, what will become of us — we will die also, my Billy !" W olkmar, in the mean time, stood enveloped with shade, his arms stretched out, motionless, and fixed in silent astonishment ; his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and he faintly and with difficulty uttered, " My Fanny, my child!" His accents reached her ear, she sprang wildly from the ground, "It is my Wolkmar's spirit/' she exclaimed. The sky instantly cleared all around, and Wolkmar burst upon her sight. They rushed together ; she fainted. " God of mercies ! " cried Wolk- mar, " if thou wilt not drive me mad, restore her to life : — she breathes ! I thank thee, O my God, she breathes! the wife of Wolkmar lives ! " Fanny recovering, felt the warm em- brace of her beloved husband ; " dear, dear Wolkmar," she faintly whispered, " thy Fanny — I cannot speak — my Wolkmar, I am top happy — see our Billy ! " The boy had crept close to his father, and was clasping him round the knees. The tide of affection rushed im- petuously through the bosom of Wolkmar, 94 LITERARY NO. V, " it presses on my heart/' he said, " I cannot bear it." The domestics, whom Fanny had brought with her for protection, crowded round. " Let us kneel," said Wolkmar, Yet is the cadence of thy soul more sweet, Yet is the concord of thy life more dear : O Lady ! if to sooth the throbbing pain, To still the tumult of this anxious mind, Some gentle Maid, in tender pity, deign My wounds of sorrow and of care to bind. Oh, be she blest, and I will ne'er repine, As thou art blest, her form and temper thine. LITERARY NO. VI. SONNET IV, TO A FRIEND RETIRING TO FRANCE IN I79O. Go, gentle youth, to Gallia's patriot * shore, Go, drink the spirit of her balmy sky, Ah ! 'twill be long, alas ! ere thou once more Shalt sooth my sorrows with the mingling sigh ; Yet go— and with thee bear this parting strain Whilst down my cheek warm flows the silent dew, Be all that friendship's melting soul can feign, " And all thy virtue dictates dare to do And now farewell ! — in what wild distant clime, In what lone waste I draw the vital breath, Be thou belov'd 1 and when at length hoar time Shall plunge my spirit in the sleep of death, Say, where the long grass trembles o'er thy poet's head, Say, wilt thou drop the tear, by sorrowing friendship led ? * This epithet has, unfortunately, since the year 1790, be- come totally inapplicable. The friends of legal liberty were, at that period, high in expectation of seeing France the seat of con- stitutional freedom : she has now, dreadful reverse ! given birth to a Government, whose despotism and ambition know no bounds, and which seems destined to carry terror and desola- tion through the civilized world. — May, 1798. HOURS; 119 NUMBER VIL — — Many an Urn There too had place, with votive lay inscrib'd To Freedom, Friendship, Solitude, or Love. Mason, To commemorate a deceased or absent friend, to express the sensations and moral effect ariling from the contemplation of beautiful scenery, to perpetuate the remembrance of some remarkable event, or inscribe the temple and the statue with appropriate address, appear to be the chief purposes of the Inscription. It is evident that no species of composition, when well written, can better answer the wifties of the friends to virtue and to goodness 1 an this j and almost every polished nation, the e- fore, has made use of it to impress the feeling mind, and to excite it to emulation. Among the Greeks it was cultivated with success, an4 u 120 LITERARY NO. VII. the Anthologia abounds in pieces of this kind, written with the most elegant simplicity. The grecian epigram, indeed, (as the word imports,) merely implies an inscription, 'and is of a nature altogether different from the Epigram of Martial, or of modern days. No point, or sparkling wit was deemed essential, but a feli- citous choice of words, a suavity of style, and a pathetic flow of sentiment were indispensible, and combined to form some of the happiest productions of antiquity.- -Several of our English Poets, likewise, have exercised their talents in Inscriptive Writing, and many of the seats of our Nobility and Gentry are embellished with the characteristic effusions of their genius ; the Leasowes and Hagley Park may be mentioned as well-known instances of taste, and beautiful effect in the use of this ornament. It will not be an employment altogether void of interest, perhaps, to trace, and give a few specimens of these elegant compositions, which are calculated to awaken the purest affections, to call forth the tear of friendship or of love, to rouse the patriot feelings, and to soften and ameliorate the heart by giving a 5 NO. VII. HOURS. 12^ moral charm to the features of cultivated na- ture. Nothing, however, requires more taste, more discrimination of character, circum- stance, and place, than the attempt to decorate in this manner. Should the inscription be ill- chosen, or the scene ill-adapted to the impres- sion meant to be conveyed, contempt or dis- gust will infallibly follow, and the disap- pointed contriver become an object of ridi- cule. The most delicate and correct feelings therefore, and a taste for picturesque beauty must ever guide the experiment. The ostentatious display of sorrow is always offensive ; in the scene, therefore, sacred to departed genius, or friendship, V c utmost sim- plicity should reign ; sequestered and free from interruption, nothing should appear to attract the steps of the stranger, nothing that, by ex- citing his curiosity, may lead him to intrude. Should it be, for a moment, perceived that, by ornament and singularity, caie has been taken to lekd the wanderer to the spot, all the charm arising from.the accidental discovery of a place so hallowed in the estimation of the possessor, is, at once, precluded, and his vanity, not his •sorrow., becomes apparent. The inscription > 222 LITERARY NO. VII, itfelf, likewise, should breathe the very spirit of tender melancholy, and by exquisite touches of nature, elicit even the tear of the casual observer. The following little piece by Leo- nidas of Tarentum, a mother deploring the loss of her son, is in the best style of the greek epigram, and imbued with its peculiar felicity of sc :nt f We will suppose it inscribed upon an urn containing the ashes of the be- loved youth. Ah ! dear hapless boy, art thou gone r Sole support of my languishing years ! Hast thou left thy fond mother alone, To wear out life's evening in tears ? To forsake me thus old and forlorn, Ere thy youtli had attain'd its gay bloom I Thy sun was scarce risen at morn, When it set in the night of the tomb. Alas ! the fresh beam of the day, Happy mortals with thankfulness see ; But I sicken, O Sun ! at thy ray: It brings sadness and wailing to me ! Oh ! might the dear child but return, From despair his lost mother to save ! Or might I but share in his urn ! Might I flee in his arms to the grave ! Wakefield, NO. VII. HOURS. 123 From our own store in this class, I shall select one of singular beauty, written by Shenstone, and, without doubt, the most exquisite pro- duction of his genius. Nothing can exceed the tender sentiment which closes it. That full justice may be done to these pathetic lines, the scenery surrounding them fhould be described. " The path begins gradually to ascend beneath a depth of shade, by the side of which is a small bubbling rill, either form- ing little peninsulas, rolling over pebbles, or falling down small cascades, all under cover, and taught to murmur very agreeably. This very soft and pensive scene is terminated with an ornamented urn, inscribed to Miss Dolman, a beautiful and amiable relation of Mr. Shen- stone's, who died of the small-pox about twenty-one years of age.* On one side arc the following words : Peramabili Suae Consobrina* M. D. On the other side : Ah Maria Puellarum Elegantissima, * Dodsley's Account of the Leasowes. 124 LITER A R? *?o, vti. Ah! Flore Venustatis Abrepta, Vale ! Heu Quanto Pvlinus Est Cum Reliquis Versari, Quam Tui Meminisse ! It is no uncommon circumstance to meet with inscriptions placed amid the most beau- tiful scenery ; if these are merely of the de- scriptive kind, nothing can well be more im- pertinent ; or, should they suggest only trite moral or common-place sentiment, they will equally offend. The attempt to describe when the features of nature are before you, is, in general, absurd, and he who wifhes tq delight by moral .insinuation, must proceed with the utmost delicacy and. caution; the thought should be natural, yet not obvious ; immediately drawn from the scene, but of a kind that would not occur, probably, to one person in a hundred ; yet the moment of pe- rusal brings with it the conviction of its being the very dictate of nature, and, at the same time, no small surprize that it had not pre* viously occurred. / NO. VII. HOURS. 125 In the landscape, where all is of a character joyous and gay, to introduce a pensive train of thought forms a most pleasing contrast 5 the poet and the painter have alike availed them- selves of the idea, and the pathetic inscription has here an effect that appeals powerfully to the heart. The most beautiful odes of Horace owe their charm to this very circumstance, apd the poet never interests our feelings so much as when, amid the luxuriant colouring of spring, he hints at the shortness of life, and the fleet- ing nature of our pleasures. In the fourth ode of the first book, after describing the beauties of the vernal season and the sprightly revels of the Graces and the Nymphs, he exclaims ; O beate Sexti, Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam* Jam te premet nox. fabulseque Manes, Et domus exilis Plutonia : quo simul means, Nec regna vini sortiere talis, Nec tenerum Lycidam mirabere, quo calet juventus Nunc omnis, et mox virgines tepebunt. Again, after painting in vivid hues the re- turn of spring and the vicissitudes of the sea- sons, he pours forth the following pathetic complaint : 126 LITERARY NO. VIf # Damna tamen celeres reparant ccelestia Lunae : Nos ubi decidimus, Quo pius y£neas, quo Tullus dives, et Ancus ; Pulvis et umbra sumus. Quis scit an adjiciant hodiernae crastina summae Tempora Dii superi ? Cum semel occideris, et de te splendida Minos Fecerit arbitria ; Non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te Restituet pietas. Lib* iv. Od. 7. And here I cannot avoid quoting a few lines from the Abbe De Lille as given by his ele- gant Translator ; they breathe the very spirit of the plaintive Moschus. The Abbe having in vain attempted the preservation of some venerable trees, for whose existence he thus sweetly pleads : Oh ! by those shades, beneath whose evening bow Ys, The village dancers tripp'd the frolic hours ; By those deep tufts, that shroud your fathers' tombs, Spare, ye profane, their venerable glooms ! subjoins the annexed apostrophe : Ye saplins, rise, and crowd the empty space ; Ye dying trees, forgive your dire disgrace ! NO. VII. HOURS. I27 The fate of short-liv'd, hapless man recal, For you have seen the brave, the learned fall ; Corneille, Turenne, now sleep in dust ; on you A hundred springs have shed their balmy dew ; But man's best days, alas ! are soonest fled, And those once gone, to ev'ry joy he's dead ! Blest is the man whose trees for years have stood 1 More blest whose happier hands create a wood. He cries with Cyrus, as their shades disclose, 44 'Twas I, who planted all those stately rows. n The Garden. There cfannot be a better example of the happy effect of introducing amid gay and lux- uriant landscape a pensive idea, than the cele- brated Arcadia of Poussin. The Abbe Da Bos has been so peculiarly fortunate in de- scribing this beautiful picture, that I shall make no apology for transcribing his words. H Le tableau represente le paysage d'une con- tree riante. Au milieu Ton voit le monument d'unejeune fille morte a la fleur de son age: c'est ce qu'on connoit par la statue de cette .fille conchee sur le tombeau, a la maniere des anciens. L'inscription sepulcrale n'est que de quatre mots Latins ; Je vivois cependant cn Arcadie, Et in Arcadia ego. Mais cette IZB LITERARY NO. VII. inscription si courte fait faire les plus serieuses reflections a deux jeunes gar$ons et a deux jeunes filles parees de guirlandes de fleurs, et qui paroissent avoir rencontre ce monument si triste en des lieux ou Ton devine bien qu'ils ne cherchoient pas un objet affiigcant. Un d'entre eux fait remarquer aux autres cette inscription en la montrant du doigt, et Ton ne voit plus sur leurs visages, a travers Taffliction qui s'en empare que les restes d'une joie expirante. On s'imagine entendre les reflections de ces jeunes personnes sur la mort qui n'epargne ni l'age, hi la beaute, et contre laquelle les plus heureux climats n'ont point d'azile. On se figure ce qu'elles vont se dire de touchant, lorsqu'elles seront revenues de la premiere surprise, et Ton Tapplique a soi-meme et a ceux a qui Ton s'interessc.*" It is evident that in the moral inference to be drawn from surrounding scenery, the hand of a master is required, and that the poet should not attempt to say every thing that the view suggests, but rather lead the mind of the * Reflexions Critiques sur la Poesie et sur la Peinture, Section 6. 55, fco. vn. ko x)trs. 129 Spectator to a train of association, which, at the time, appears to be the offspring of his own intellect, yet what would not have been conceived without the original hint arising from the inscription. The little piece I am about to quote seems to me a model for this species of inscriptive writing ; in delineation beautiful, in moral exquisite. FOR A TABLET ON THE BANKS OF A STREAM. Stranger ! awhile upon this mossy bank Recline thee. If the sun ride high, the breeze, That loves to ripple o'er the rivulet, Will play around thy brow, and the cool sound Of running waters soothe thee. Mark how clear It sparkles o'er the shallows, and behold Where o'er its surface wheels with restless speed Yon glossy insect, on the sand below How the swift shadow flies. The stream is pure In solitude, and many a healthful herb Bends o'er its course, and drinks the vital wave : But passing on amid the haunts of man, It finds pollution there, and rolls from thence A tainted tide. Seek'st thou for Happiness ? Go, Stranger, sojourn in the woodland cot Of Innocence, and thou shalt find her there, Souths y* Vol. % K t^O LITERARY NO. VIIV Man)' national advantages might be derived from the custom of erecting inscriptions to perpetuate the memory of any remarkable event, or deed. Were the efforts of the patriot thus cherished, the exertions of tyranny, cru- elty, and oppression, thus held up to detesta- tion and infamy ; were the spot on which any memorable struggle for the welfare or liberty of mankind had occurred, thus gratefully con- secrated ; were the birth-place or former resi- dence of departed genius, the scene of reno- vated art or science, thus duly recorded, fresh motives to excel in all that is laudable, power- ful incentives to virtue, to patriotism, to intel- lectual perfection, would be acquired, and the national character, perhaps, ameliorated through the medium of emulation. The rustic and civic inscriptions of Akenside are well known, and possess considerable me- fit ; his language is nervous, impressive, and chaste. Mr. Southey, however, seems to have rivalled him in these respects, while he evi* dently surpasses him in pathos. From his, Letters on Spain and Portugal I have selected an Inscription for the Birth-place of Pizarro ; in my opinion an excellent specimen of what.. ftO. VII. HOURS. 131 among other moral purposes, pieces of this class should effect — the reprehension of cruelty and inordinate ambition. INSCRIPTION FOR A COLUMN AT TRUXILLO, * Pizarro here was born : a greater name The list of Glory boasts not. Toil and Want And Danger never from his course deterr'd This daring soldier ; many a fight he won ; He slaughter'd thousands ; he subdu'd a rich And ample realm ; such were Pizarro's deeds : And W ealth, and Power, and Fame, were his rewards Among mankind. There is another World. O Reader ! if you earn your daily bread By daily labour, if your lot be low,— Be hard and wretched, thank the gracious God Who made you, that you are not such as he. When the ruins of the gothic castle and Abbey are so situated as to be drawn within the range of the picturesque improver, nothing can more happily accord with the wishes ot taste, and the genius of the surrounding sce- nery ; they are appropriate to the soil, and suggest the most interesting retrospect of the religion, manners, and customs of our ances- tors ; but as these beautiful remains of anti- K 2 LITERARY NO. Vll* quity can only be the lot of a fortunate few, and the attempt to imitate them is always difficult, and seldom, if ever, successful, the grecian temple, of an order adapted to the scene, has been the usual decoration of em- bellished ground. Ornaments of this kind, when under the control of judgment, and not too profusely scattered, have a pleasing effect, and though not productive of reflections so national as the gcthic style of architecture, yet to the elegant and cultivated mind recal the earliest and most fascinating associations. Within these beautiful and airy structures in- scriptions are generally found, dedicatory of the fabric, and not seldom replete with every poetic excellence. Many specimens might be selected, either original, or happily chosen from ancient or modern literature ; but none can, perhaps, exceed the following admirable lines, translated by Mr. Bryant from the Hippolytus of Euripides : they are inscribed in an elegant Ionic temple in Blenheim gardens, supposed to be dedicated to Diana : To thee, bright Goddess, these fair flowers I bring A chaplet woven from th' untainted mead, Thy cool seqnester'd haunt : where never yet KJO.VII. HOURS. I33 Shepherd approach'd, where the rude hind ne'er heav'd Th' unhallow'd axe ; nor voice, nor sound is heard, Save the low murmuring of the vernal bee : The day-spring from above the dew distils, Genuine and mild, from the pure stream exhal'd, On ev'ry fragrant herb and fav'rite flower. To him who secedes exhausted from the busy world, from the tumultuous cares and anxiety of public life, the most secret retire- ment charms in proportion to the force of contrast ; and the rustic shed, or the streaih- wash'd hermitage, have, for a season, irre- sistible attractions. The rocky glen or deep secluded valley, clothed with wood, and wa- tered, by the freshening rill, then soothe to peace the wearied spirit, disperse each angry and injurious thought, and melt the heart to all the tender offices of humanity. In situa- tions such as these, the lover of sequestered nature has delighted to conceive the pious anchorite had formerly dwelt, and, cherishing a thought which opens new sources of reflec- tion, and throws a more aweful tint upon the scene, he builds the rude dwelling of his fan- cied hermit, and gives almost the features of reality. Many such scenes, the offspring of a K 3 134 LITERARY NO. VII- romantic imagination improving on the wild ^ketches of nature, are scattered through our island, and heightened by inscriptions more or less adapted to the occasion. One of these, valuable for its sweetness of style, but still more so for its moral imagery, may with pro- priety be adduced here as an example. INSCRIPTION FOR AN HERMITAGE BELONGING TO SIR ROBERT BURDETT. O Thou, who to this wild retreat Shalt lead by choice thy pilgrim feet To trace the dark wood waving o'er This rocky cell and sainted floor ; If here thou bring a gentle mind That shuns by fits, yet loves mankind, That leaves the schools, and in this wood Learns the best science — to be good ; Then soft as on the deeps below 'Yon oaks their silent umbrage throw, Peace, to thy prayers by virtue brought, Pilgrim, shall biess thy hallow'd thought. Bagshaw Steevens. Anxious to preserve the memory of departed friendship, or genius, Affection and Gratitude have endeavoured to effectuate their wishes through the medium of sculpture, and the 1,0, VII. HOURS. I35 bust, the medallion, or the statue, claim our notice, and give an interesting character to the scenery in which they are placed. Some of the mythological figures of Greece and Rome, and some personifications of the virtues*and passions, have also been adopted, but require much judgment in the choice of scene, and much attention to classical minutiae to produce their due effect. Beneath sculpture of this kind, inscriptions are common, though seldom attaining the end proposed. A curious felicity of expression, terse and pointed, brevity and originality of conception, should unite, requi- sites not easily obtained, though assiduously sought for. Several excellent productions in this class may be found in the Anthologia, in- tended for either pictures or statues ; that beautiful one commencing Exkb txXm, and which I have selected for the motto of one of these sketches, is beyond all praise. The fol- lowing lines, written by our late worthy poet laureat, are in the true spirit of the greek epigram, and were meant to be placed beneath a statue of Scmnus in the garden of the late learned Mr. Harris of Salisbury. The transla- tion, which does great justice to the original, is from the pen of the celebrated Peter Pindar, K 4 V 1$6 LITERARY NO. VII. and was produced, asserts Mr. Polwhele, in a few minutes. AD SOMNUM. jpmne levis, quamquam certissima mortis imago, Consortem cupio te, tamen, esse tori : Alma quies, optata veni ; nam, sic, sine vita Vivere, quam suave est ; sic, sine morte, mori.* TO SLEEP. Come, gentle Sleep, attend thy votary's prayer, And, tho' Death's image, to my couch repair ! How sweet, thus lifeless, yet with life to lie, Thus, without dying, O, how sweet to die ! Wolcot. This cursory view of the Inscription, and its various classes, will not, I flatter myself, prove unentertaining to the reader : the quo- tations are, certainly, of the most exquisite "beauty, and will tend, I hope, to support my assertion, that the cultivation of this species of poetry may produce the most pleasing, and even the most salutary and beneficial effects. * I have seen a copy in which the first and third lines are given thus : Somne, veni, et quamquam certissima mortis imago es-** Hue ades, haud abiture cito s nam, &c. HO. VIII. HOURS, *37 NUMBER VIII. There would he dream of graves, and corses pale; And ghosts, that to the charnel-dungeon throng, And drag a length of clanking chain, and wail, Till silenc'd by the owl's terrific song, Or blasts that shriek by fits the shuddering isles along.— Anon in view a portal's blazon'd arch Arose ; the trumpet bids the valves unfold ; And forth an host of little warriors march, Grasping the diamond lance, and targe of gold : Their look was gentle, their demeanour bold, And green their helms, and green their silk attire; And here and there, right venerably old, The long-rob'd minstrels wake the warbling wire, And some with mellow breath the martial pipe inspire. Beattie. Of the various kinds of superstition which have in any age influenced the human mind, none appear to have operated with so much f fleet as what has been termed the Gothic I38 LITERARY NO. VIII, Even in the present polished period of society, there are thousands who are yet alive to all the horrors of withcraft, to all the solemn and terrible graces of the appalling spectre. The most enlightened mind, the mind free from all taint of superstition, involuntarily acknow- ledges the power of gothic agency ; and the late favourable reception which two or three publications in this style have met with, is a convincing proof of the assertion. The en- chanted forest of Tasso, the spectre of Camo- ens, and the apparitions of Shakspeare, are to this day highly pleasing, striking, and sublime features in these delightful compositions. — And although this kind of superstition be able to arrest every faculty of the human mind, and to shake, as it were, all nature with horror, 'yet does it also delight in the most sportive and elegant imagery. The traditionary tales of elves and fairies still convey to a warm imagination an inexhausted . source of inven- tion, supplying all those wild, romantic, and varied ideas with which a wayward fancy loves to sport. The Provencal bards, and the neglected Chaucer and Spenser, are the origi- nals from whence this exquisite species of XO. VIII. HOURS. I39 fabling has been drawn, improved, and applied with so much Inventive elegance by Shakspeare. The flower and the leaf of Chancer is replete with the most luxuriant description of these preternatural beings. The vulgar gothic therefore, an epithet here adopted to distinguish it from the regular mythology of the Edda, turns chiefly on the awful ministration of the Spectre, or the inno- cent gambols of the Fairy, the former, perhaps, partly derived from Platonic Christianity, the latter from the fictions ot the East, as imported into Europe during the period of the Crusades; but whatever be its derivation, it is certainly a mode of superstition so assimilated with the universal apprehension of superior agency, that few minds have been altogether abie to shake it off. Even to Philosophy, admitting of the doctrine of immaterialism, it becomes no easy task consistently to deny the possibility of such an interference. Whilst it therefore gives con- siderable latitude to the imagination, it seems to possess more rationality than almost any other species of fabling ; for, confined by no adherence to any regular mythological system, but depending merely upon the possible, and I40 LITERARY NO. VIII. to some highly probable, visitation of immate- rial agents, it has even in the present metaphy- sical period still retained such a degree of credit as yet to render it an important and impressive machine beneath the guidance of genuine poesy. If to those who have paid the most subtile attention to the existence and relative action of matter and spirit, it becomes a subject of doubt to deny the visible operation of spirit, surely in the bosom of the million it must stiil preserve some portion of influence, and as, if such an agency exist, its laws and direction must be to us altogether unknown, it furnishes, if not the probable, at least the pos- sible, at all times a sufficient basis, for the airy structure of the poet. It is remote from every wish of the Author to encourage any superstition that may render his fellow creatures alive to unnecessary and puerile terror ; but allowing the existence and occasionally the visible exertion of spirit upon matter, with the wise and with the good no painful emotion can arise, and if one more pang be added to the struggles of conscious guilt, the world, he should imagine, would be no sufferer ; but it is here only as furnishing NO. VII f. HOURS. 1 41 fit materials for. poetical composition that a wish for preserving such a source of imagery is expressed. When well conducted, a grateful astonishment, a welcome sensation of fear, will alike creep through the bosom of the Sage and of the Savage, and it is, perhaps, to the intro- duction of such well-imagined agency, or when not introduced upon the scene, to a very fre- quent allusion to it, that Shakspeare, beyond any other poet, owes the capability of raising the most awful, yet the most delightful species of terror. No poet, adopting a machinery of a similar kind, has wielded it with equal effect. Among the Italians it is too frequently ad- dressed solely to the imagination ; Ariosto in general, and Tasso sometimes, descending to all the extravaganza of oriental fiction ; con- ducted, as by Shakspeare, it powerfully moves, the strongest passions of the heart.— Next to the Gothic, in point of sublimity and imagination, comes the Celtic, which, if the superstition of the Lowlands be esteemed a part of it, may, with equal propriety, be divided into the terrible, and the sportive ; the former, as displayed in the poems of Ossian ; the latter, in the songs and ballads of the Low 142 LITERARY NO. VIII. Country. This superstition, like the got hie, has the same happy facility of blending its ideas with the common apprehensions of mankind ; it does not, like most mythological systems, involve every species of absurdity, but, float- ing loose upon the mind, founds its imagery upon a metaphysical possibility, upon the appearance of superior, or departed beings, Ossian has, however, opened a new field for invention, he has given fresh colouring to his supernatural agents, he has given them employ- ments new to gothic fiction: his ghosts are not the ghosts of Shakspeare, yet are they equally solemn and striking. The abrupt and rapid fervour of imagination, the vivid touches of enthusiasm, mark his composition, and his spectres rush upon the eye with all the stupen- dous vigour of wild and momentary creation. So deep and uniform a melancholy pervades the poetry of this author, that, whether from natural disposition, or the pressure of misfor- tune, from the face of the country which he inhabited, or the insulated state ot society, he sterns ever to have avoided imagery of a light and airy kind ; otherwise, from the originality of his genius, much in this way might have been expected. As to the superstition of the NO. VIII. HOURS. I43 Lowlands, it differs so little from the lighter gothic, that I am not warranted in drawing any distinction between them. It is not, however, peculiar to this district of Scotland, the High- landers in many parts, especially in their beau- tiful little vales, being still enthusiastic in their belief of it. And here may I be pardoned, if I offer a few strictures upon the dress which the British Ossian has assumed. Greatly as I admire the pathos and sublime imagery of this Bard of other times, I cannot but regret the style in which Mr. Macpherson has chosen to clothe him. A stiffness the most rigid, a monotony the most tedious, are its general characteristics, and were it not for the very powerful appeals to the heart and imagination,few readers would be tempted to a second perusal. That Dr. Blair, however, a Critic of acknowledged taste and judgment, that he should approve of this mode of composition, nay, should prefer it to any species of versification, is, to me, still more extraordinary ; nor can I any tvay account for such a remarkable, and as I should hope al- most insulated, opinion, for in other instances, the perfect judge of melody and rhythm in 144 LITERARY NO. VllI* cnglish poetry, is apparent. How had the pa- thos and sublimity of Ossian been heightened, how mingled with every variety of harmony and rhythmical cadence, had the versification of Cowper and Milton been adopted. Mr. Macpherson has termed his translation a literal one ; but if really built upon oral tradition, upon a species of legendary poesy, sung and set to music in a manner calculated to assist the memory, how monstrously must it have deviated from the originals ! Had it been his wish to have given us a faithful copy of these interesting fictions, the ballad stanza would, perhaps, have afforded the choicest vehicle ; but if ambitious of founding a structure of his own on these tales, the boundless variety of blank verse would surely have done more justice to his conceptions ; they certainly merit a better style, and when this desideratum is obtained, I shall not hesitate in placing Ossian (whether of ancient or modern production is to me perfectly indifferent) on the same shelf with Homer, Shakspeare, and Milton.—— But to return. — These are then (the vulgar Gothic and the Celtic) the only two species of superstition which are still likely to retain their VHI. HOURS. 145 ground ; founded chiefly on the casual inter- ference of immaterial beings, and therefore easily combining with the common feelings of humanity, they may yet with propriety deco- rate the pages of the poet, when the full-formed system of mythology will be rejected as in- volving too much fiction. Some attempts, however, have been lately made to revive the Scandinavian or Islandic mythology, and the sublime effusions of Gray and Sayers have thrown a magic lustre round the daring crea- tions of the Edda. That they will ever become popular must, I should imagine, be a matter of considerable doubt, but these authors have written for the few, for the lovers of genuine poetry, and with their suffrage they will cer- tainly be contented. It has been however too much the fashion, among critical writers, to condemn, the intro- duction of any kind of supernatural agency* although perfectly consonant with the common feelings of mankind ; and the simple yet power- ful superstitions* recommended to the poet in this paper, seem to bid fair for sharing the fate of more complex systems: but whilst they are thus formed to influence the people* to sur- Vol. L L 146 LITERARY NO. VIII. prise, elevate, and delight, with a willing admi- ration, every faculty of the human mind, how shall criticism with impunity dare to expunge i them ? Genius has ever had a predilection for such imagery, and I may venture, I think, to predict, that if at any time these romantic legends be totally laid aside, our national poetry will degenerate into mere morality, criticism, and satire \ and that the sublime, the terrible, and the fanciful in poetry, will no longer exist. The recent publication of Mr, Hole's Arthur has, indeed, called the attention of the public to many of these fertile sources of invention, but although the work has great merit, it is confessedly built too much upon the Italian mode of fabling ; the machinery is not sufficiently awful to excite eager attention, and throughout the whole poem, perhaps, the heart is too little engaged. Imagery of this kind should ricPt only r waken surprise, but, to leave a lasting impression, both pity and terror. Should Arthur, however, in a future edition be enlarged, (and what enlargement may not a work, of pure imagination admit of?) a more frequent introduction of the pathetic would, most probably, seal it for immortality 5 lor h is nevertheless tto.viir. hours. 147 In scenes like these, which daring to depart From sober truth, are still to nature true, And call forth fresh delight to Fancy's view, Th' heroic Muse employ'd her Tasso's art ! How have I sat, when pip'd the pensive wind, To hear his harp, by British Fairfax strung, Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind Believ'd the magic wonders which he sung ! Hence at each sound imagination glows ; Hence his warm lay with softest sweetness flows; Melting, it flows, pure, numerous, strong, and clear, And fills th' impassion'd heart, and wins th' har- monious ear. Collins Although so great a disparity evidently obtains between the two species of Gothic superstition, the terrible and the sportive, yet no author, that I am acquainted with, has 5 for narrative machinery, availed himself of this circumstance, and thrown them into immediate contrast. In a beautiful fragment lately pub- lished by Mrs. Barbauld, under the title of Sir Bertrand, the transition is immediately from the deep Gothic to the Arabic or Saracenic superstition ; which, although calculated to surprise, would have given more pleasure, perhaps, and would have rendered the pre- / 148 LITERARY NO. Vllt. ceding scenes of horror more striking, had it been of a light and contrasted kind. Struck, therefore, with the propriety of the attempt, and the exquisite beauty that would probably result from such an opposition of imagery, I have determined to devote a few papers to this design, and in the following Ode * and Tale, which are solely amenable to the tribunal of Fancy, much of both species of the vulgar gothic superstition is introduced. Entirely relinquished to the guidance of imagination, the author has not only employed the possibilities of immaterial agency, but the more obsolete and preternatural terrors of witchcraft, and enchantment ; the latter are, perhaps, except in some secluded parts of the country, nearly banished from the popular creed > but at the supposed period of our story, and for two centuries afterwards, Witches were thought really to exist, and Spenser most probably drew from nature, having actually seen such a shed, the reputed abode of a witch, when he penned the following descriptive lines : * \ have attended to the strictures of the British Critic on this Ode, and its diction and imagery have, in three or fl/uy in- stances > been altered. no. vnr. hours. 149 There in a gloomy hollowe glen she found A little cottage built of stickes and reedes, In homely wise, and walPd with sods around ? In which a witch did dwell, in loathly weedes, And wilfull want, all carelesse of her needes. B. iii. cant. 7. st. 6. At all events it was thought necessary to acquaint the reader with the machinery of the succeeding ode and tale, that, provided he choose not to venture among their horrors, he may pass forward to scenes of a more tranquil nature. LITERARY NO. Villi, ODE TO SUPERSTITION, Quid iste fert tumultus ? Aut quid omnium Vultus in unum me truces ? Horatius. Saw ye that dreadful shape ? heard ye the scream That shook my trembling soul ? E'en now, e'en now, where yon red lightnings gleam Wan forms of terror scowl — I know thee, Superstition ! fiend, whose breath Poisons the passing hours, Pales the young cheek, and o'er the bed of death The gloom of horror pours ! Of ghastly Fear, and darkest Midnight born, Far in a blasted dale, Mid Lapland's woods, and noisome wastes forlorn, Where lurid hags the moon's pale orbit ha?,: NO. VIII. HOURS. 151 There, in some vast, some wild and cavern' d cell, Where flits the dim blue flame, They drink warm blood, and act the deed of hell, The " deed without a name." With hollow shriek and boding cry, Round the wit her- d witches hie, On their uncouth features dire, Gleams the pale and livid fire ; The charm begins, and now arise Shadows foul, and piercing cries, Storm and tempest loud assail, Beating wind and rattling hail ; Thus, within th' infernal wood, Dance they round the bubbling blood, Till sudden from the wond'ring eye, Upborne on harpy wing they fly, Where, on the rude inhospitable wild, Fir'd by the lightning's arrowy stroke, Oft at the balmy close of evening mild, They're seen to hurry round the blasted oak : Then rise strange spectres to the pilgrim's view, With horrid lifeless stare, And gliding float upon the noxious dew, And howling rend the air. L 4 1$2 LITERARY NO. VIII, Oft near yon leaf-clad solitary fane, While morn yet clasps the night, Some ghost is heard to sound his clanking chain, Beheld mid moon-beam pale and dead to sight ; Nor less unfrequent the lone trav'ller hears The sullen-sounding bell, And the dim-lighted tow'r awakes to fears Of haunted mansion, brake, or darkling dell ? Haste thee. Superstition ! fly, Perish this thy sorcery ! Why in these gorgon terrors clad, But to affright, afEict the baakj Tis thee, O Goddess ! thee I hail, Of Hesper born, and Cynthia pale, That wont the same rude name to bear, Yet gentle all, and void of fear 5 O, come, in .Fancy's garb array'd, In all her lovely forms display 'd, And o'er the poet's melting soul, Bid the warm tide of rapture roll, To dying music, warbling gales, 'Mid moon-light scenes, and woody vales, Where Elves, and Fays, and Sprites disport, And nightly keep their festive court ; There, 'mid the pearly flood of light, In tincts cerulean richly dight, NO. VIII. HOURS. Light-sporting o'er the trembling green, Glance they quick thro' the magic scene, And from the sparkling moss receive, Shed by the fragrant hand of Eve, The silver dew, of matchless pow'r, To guard from harm, at midnight hour, The lonely wight, who lost, from far, Views not one friendly guiding star, Or one kind lowly cottage door, To point his track across the moor; Whilst the storm howling, prompts his mind Dark Demons ride the northern wind, And, plaining, mourn their cruel doom, On tempest huri'd, and wint'ry gloom: Oft too, along the vales at eve, Shall Sprites the songs of gladness weave, With many a sweet and varied flight, Soft warbling hymn the setting light, Heard far th' echoing hills among, Whilst chanting wild their heav'nly song, Till lost in ether dies away, The last, long, faint and murm'ring lay 1 These on the lonely Bard attend, With him the mountain's side ascend, Or in the valley's lowly plain, To Rapture breathe the melting strain ; 154 LITERARY NO. VIII. These lift his soul beyond her clime, To daring flights of thought sublime. Where, warm'd by Fancy's brightest fire, He boldly sweeps the sounding lyre : Come then, with wild flow'rs, come array'd, O Superstition, magic maid ! And welcome then, suggesting pow'r ! At evening close, or midnight hour.* * The two species of gothic superstition, the gloomy and the sportive, are, in this Ode, represented as the offspring of differ- ent parents j the former being produced by Fear and Midnight, the latter by Hesper and the Moon. The idea is founded on a with a view to alarm any passenger, or pilgrim, who might in the morning be jour- neying that way, and induce him to inquiry, and the offer of assistance. The thunder had by this time passed offj twilight began to dawn, and Henry, notwith- standing the fatigues of the preceding day. Vol. h N ij§ LITERARY NO. IX. determined to push forward immediately to the castle of Walleran, in hopes of taking him by surprise. Accordingly, arming those of his servants who had not been injured in the previous contest, and intrusting the w r ounded to the care of the women, he clothed himself in mail, and mounting a fresh steed, reached the magnificent halls of Walleran in little more than an hour. Here, however, to his great disappointment, he learnt, that Walleran had not returned from the chase, but that about two hours after noon, a man, who to them was a stranger, and mounted on a horse bathed in foam, had arrived to say, that the Earl would not revisit his castle for some weeks/but refused to give them any informa- tion with regard to his present place of resi- lience, Henry, oppressed in body and mind, now slowly returned to Ruydvellin, pondering on, the plan he should pursue ; and on his arrival at the castle, hastened to consult his sister, and the mother of his Adeline, HOURS.. *79 NUMBER X. , — — What is this So wither'd, and so wiid in its attire ; That looks not like an inhabitant o' the earth, And yet is on 't ? - 1 Shakspeare. Though no present intelligence could be obtained relative to the abode of Walleran, yet as it was most probable that where he was, there Adeline would be found, Henry deter- mined, with the concurrence of his family, to spare no effort in detecting His residence. After a few hours rest, therefore, he armed himself completely, and bidding adieu to his disconsolate friends, to whom, assuming a cheerful tone, he promised the speedy restora- tion of Adeline, he mounted his favourite roan, and issued from the great gate, whilst the sun, now verging towards noon, smote full upon his plumed casque* n 2 1 8*0 LITERACY 0. X. Not willing, however, to alarm the neigh- bouring country, where his person and accou- trements would be known wherever he should stop for inquiry, 2nd secrecy being likewise necessary toward the completion of his views y he carefully concealed his features beneath his visor, assumed unusual arms, took a different device, and no retinue whatever, resolved, should he find Walleran surrounded by his myrmidons, to hasten back to Ruydvellin,and collecting his faithful followers, return and attack him in full force, placing no confidence in his honour, should a single' combat ensue, when thus supported by banditti. That no time might be lost in the pursuit, he dismissed t wo of his confidential servants on different routes,, and under similar precautions. These measures being taken, Henry carried his researches through the neighbouring seats, and made every inquiry that could lead to detection, but in vain y striking further into the country, therefore, he unexpectedly came into very wild sceneiy, and it was with difficulty* he could procure the most homely provision in a tract so thinly inhabited, and where a shep* herd's hut, or the cottage of a peasant, proved KO. Xv HOURS. l8l his only places of rest. Some weeks had thus passed, when toward the sunset of a very fine day, after having traversed a lone and unfre- quented part, he arrived at the edge of a thick and dark forest ; the sky became suddenly overcast, and it began to rain ; the thunder rolled at a distance, and sheets of livid light- ning flashed across the heath. Overcome with fatigue and hunger, he rode impatiently along the border of the forest, in hopes of discovering an entrance, but none was to be found. At length, just as he was about to dismount with an intention of breaking the fence, he dis- cerned, as he thought, something moving upon, the heath, and, upon advancing towards it, it proved to be an old woman gathering peat, ^ and who, overtaken by the storm, was hurrying home as fast as her infirm limbs could carry her. The sight of a human creature filled the heart of Fitzowen with joy, and, hastily riding up, he inquired how far he had deviated from the right road, and where he could procure a night's lodging. The old woman now slowly lifting up her palsied head, discovered a set of features which could scarcely be called human, her eyes were red, piercing and distorted, and rolling horribly, glanced upon every object N 3 iBl LITER A RY. NO. X, but the person by whom she was addressed^ and, at intervals, they emitted a fiery disagree- able light ; her hair, of a dirty gray, hung matted in large masses upon her shoulders, and a few thin portions rushed abrupt and horizon- tally from the upper part of her forehead, which was much wrinkled, and of a parchment hue ; her cheeks were hollow, withered, and red with a quantity of acrid rheum ; her nose was large, prominent, and sharp ; her lips thin, skinny, and livid ; her few teeth black ; and her chin long and peaked, with a number of bushy hairs depending from its extremity ; her nails also were acute, crooked, and bent over her fingers 5 and her garments, ragged and fluttering in the wind, displayed every possible variety df colour, Henry was a little daunted i but, the old woman having mentioned a dwelling at some distance, and offering to lead the way, the pleasure received from this piece of intel- ligence effaced the former impression, and, alighting from his horse, he laid hold of the bridle, and they slowly moved over the heath. i The storm had now ceased, and the moon rising gave presage of a fine night, just as this singular conductor, taking a sudden turn* 4 I NO. X, HOURS. 183 plunged into the wood by a path, narrow and almost choked up with a quantity of briar and thorn. The trees were thick, and, save a few glimpses of the moon, which, now and then, poured light on the uncouth features of his companion, all was dark and dismal ; the heart of Fitzowen misgave him ; neither spoke 5 and he pursued his guide merely by the noise she made in hurrying through the bushes, which was done with a celerity totally inconsistent with her former decrepitude. At length the path grew wider, and a faint blue light, which came from a building at some distance, glim- mered before them ; they now left the wood, and issued upon a rocky and uneven piece of ground, whilst the moon struggling through a cloud, cast a doubtful and uncertain light, and the old woman, with a leer which made the very hair of Fitzowen stand on end, told him that the dwelling was at hand. It was so ; for a got hie castle, placed on a considerable elevation, now came in view $ it was a large jnassy structure, much decayed, and some parts of it in a totally ruinous condition ; a portion, however, of the keep, or great tower, was still entire, as was also the entrance, to the court or N 4 184 LITERARY NO* X". enclosure, preserved probably by the ivy* whose fibres crept round with solicitous care. Large fragments of the ruin were scattered about, covered with moss rind half sunk in the ground, and a number of old elm trees, through whose foliage the wind sighed with a sullen and melancholy sound, dropped a deep and settled gloom, that scarce permitted the moon to stream by fits upon the building. Fitzowen drew near, ardent curiosity mingled with awe dilated his bosom, and he inwardly congratu- lated himself upon so singular an adventure, when turning round to question his companion, a glimpse of the moon poured full upon his eye so horrid a contexture of feature, so wild and preternatural a combination, that, smote with terror and unable to move, a cold sweat trickled from every pore, and immediately this infernal being seizing him by the arm, and hurrying him over the draw- bridge to the great entrance of the keep, the portcullis fell with a tremendous sound, and the astonished youth, starting as it were from a trance, drew his sword in act to destroy his treacherous guide, when instantly a horrible and infernal laugh burst from her, and in a moment the whole castle KO. X. HOURS. 185 was in an uproar, peal after peal issuing from every quarter, till at length growing faint they died away, and a dead silence ensued. Fitzowen, who, during this strange tumult, had collected all his scattered powers, now looked round him with determined resolution; his terrible corppa-ftion had disappeared, and the moon shining full upon the portcullis con* vinced him that any escape that way was impracticable; the wind sighed through the elms, and the scared owl, uttering his discordant note, broke from his nest, and, sweeping through the vale beneath, sought for more secure reoose. Having reasoned himself, therefore, into a state 01 cool fortitude, and bent up every power to the appalling enter- prise, our Adventurer entered the great tower, from a loop-hole near the summit of which a dim twinkling light could be just discerned. He extended his sword before him, for it was dark, and proceeded carefully to search around, in hopes, either of discovering some aperture which might lead to the vestibule, or staircase, or oi wreaking his vengeance on the wretch who had thus decoyed him. All was still as {leath, but as hg strode over the flvfor, a dull, 1 86 LITERARY K0. X, hollow sound issued from beneath, and ren- dered him apprehensive of falling through into some dismal vault, from which he might never be able to extricate himself. Ip this situation, dreading the effect of each light footstep, a sound, as of many people whispering, struck his ear ; he bent forward, listening with eager attention, and as it seemed txy proceed from a little distance only before him, he determined to follow it ; he did so, and instantly fell through the mouldering pavement, whilst at the same time peals of horrid laughter again burst, with reiterated clamour, from every chamber cf the castle. Fitzowen rose with considerable difficulty, &nd much stunned with the fall, although, fortunately, the spot he had dropped upon was covered with a quantity of damp and soft earth, which gave way to his weight. He now found himself in a large vault, arched in the gothic manner* and supported by eight massy pillars, down whose sides the damp moisture ran in cold and heavy drops, the moon shining with great lustre through three iron grated windows, which, although rusty with age, were strong enough to resist his utmost efforts, and NO. X. HOURS. 187 having in vain tried to force them, he now looked around for his sword, which, during the fall, had started from his grasp, and in search- ing the ground frith his fingers, he laid hold of, and drew forth, the fresh bones of an enormous skeleton ; he started back with horror ; a cold wind brushed violently along the surface tx£ the vault, and a ponderous iron door, slowly grating on its hinges, opened at one cprner, and disclosed to his wondering eye a broken stair- case, down whose steps a blue and taint light flashed by fits, like the lightning of a summer's eve* Appalled by these dreadful prodigies, Fitz- owen felt, in spite of all his resolution, a cold and death-like chill pervade his frame, and kneeling down, he prayed fervently to that Power without whose mandate no being is let loose upon another, and feeling himself more calm and resolved, he again began to search for his sword, when a moon-beam, falling on the blade, at once restored it to its owner. Having thus resumed his wonted fortitude and resolution, he held a parley with himself, and perceiving no way by which he could i88 LITERARY NO. x. escape, boldly resolved to brave all the terrors of the staircase, and, once more recommending himself to his Maker, began to ascend. The light still flashed, enabling him to climb those parts which were broken or decayed. He had proceeded in this manner a considerable way, mounting, as he supposed, to the summit of the keep, when suddenly a shrill and agonizing shriek issued from the upper part of it, and something rudely brushing down grasped him with tremendous strength ; in a moment he became motionless and cold as ice, and felt himself hurried back by some irresistible being; but, just as he had reached the vault, a spectre of so dreadful a shape stalked by within it, that, straining every muscle, he sprang from the deadly grasp: the iron door rushed in thunder upon its hinges, and a deep hollow groan resounded from beneath. No sooner had the door closed, than yelling screams, and sounds which almost suspended the very pulse of life, issued from the vault, as if a troop of hellish furies, with their chains untied, were clashing them in frenzy, and howling to the uproar. Henry stood fixed in horror, a deadly fear ran through every vein, and the throbbing of. his heart oppressed him. The tumult, SO. X. HOURS. I§9 however, at length subsiding, he recovered some portion of strength, and immediately making use of it to convey himself as far as possible from the iron door, presently reached his former elevation on the stair-case, which, after ascending a few more steps, terminated in a winding gallery. The light, which had hitherto flashed inces- santly, now disappeared, and he was left in almost total darkness, except when, now and then, the moon threw a few cool rays through some shattered loop-hole, heightening the hor- ror of the scene. He felt reluctant to proceed, and looked back with apprehension lest some yelling fiend should again plunge him into the vault. A mournful wind howled through the apartments of the castle, and listening, he thought he heard the iron door grate upon its hinges ; he started with terror, the sweat stood in big drops upon his forehead, and he rushed forward with desperate despair, till having turned a corner of the gallery, a taper, burning with a faint light, gleamed through a narrow dark passage ; approaching the spot whence it streamed, he perceived it arose from an exten- sive room? the folding doors of which were 1 00 LITERACY NO. X< wide open: he entered; a small taper in a massy silver candlestick stood upon a table in the middle of the room, but gave so inconsi- derable an illumination, that one end was Wrapped in palpable darkness, and the other scarcely broken in upon by a dim light that glimmered through a large ramified window covered with thick ivy. An arm chair, shat- tered and damp with age, was placed near the table, and the remains of a recent fire were still visible in the grate. The wainscot of black oak, had formerly been hung with tapestry, and several portions still clung to those parts which were near the fire ; they possessed some vivacity of tint, and, with mush gilding yet apparent on the chimney-piece, and several mouldering reliques of costly frames and paint* ings, gave indisputable evidence of the ancient grandeur of the place* Henry closed the fold- ing doors, and, taking the taper, was about to survey the room, when a half-stifled groan from the dark end of it smote cold upon his heart* at the same time the sound as of something falling with a dead weight, echoed through the room, and a bell tolled deep and hollow from the tower above. He replaced the taper, the flame of which was agitated ; now quivering. NO. X. HOURS. tgi sunk, now streaming, flamed aloft, and as tl $ last pale portion died away, the scarce distin- guished form of some terrific being float c J slowly by, and again another dreadiui groa^ ran deepening through the gloom, and tke bell swung solemn from the keep. Henry stood for some time incapable of motion 5 at length summoning all his fortitude, he advanced with hfs sword extended to the darkest part of the room : instantly burst forth in fierce irradia- tions a blue sulphureous splendour, and the mangled body of a man distorted with the agony of death, his every fibre racked with convulsion, his beard and hair stiff and matted with blood, his mouth open, and his eyes pro- truding from their sockets, rushed upon his maddening senses; he started, uttering a wild shriek, and, hurrying he knew not whither, burst through the folding doors. Darkness again , spread her sable pall over the unfortunate Fitzowen, and he trode along .the narrow passage with a feeble and a falter- ing step. His intellect shook, and over- whelmed by the late appalling objects, had not yet recovered any degree of recollection ; and he wandered, as in a dream, a confused train tgi LifERAiir So* & of horrible ideas passing unconnected through his mind ; at length, however, memory resumed lier function, resumed it but tfe daunt him with haatowing r uggestions ; the direful horrors of the room behind, and of the vault below, were st? U present to his eyes, and, as a man whom hellish fiends had irurhtened, he stood tren> bling, pale and staging wild. All was now onct more silent and dark, and he determined to wait in this spot the dawn of day, but a few minutes had scarce elapsed, when the iron door screaming on its hinges, bellowed through the murmuring ruin. Henry nearly fainted at the sound, which, pausing for some time, again swelled upon the wind, and at last died away in shrill melancholy shrieks ; again all was silent, and again the same fearful noise struck terror to his soul. Whilst his mind was thus agitated with horror and apprehension, a feeble light streaming from behind, accompanied with a soft, quick, and hollow tread, convinced him, that something was pursuing, and struck with wildering fear, he rushed unconscious down the steps; the vault received him, and its portals swinging to their close, sounded as the sentence of death. A dun fetid vapour filled the place, in the centre of which arose a faint *\Q. X. HOURS* 193 and bickering flame. Fitzowen approached, and beheld a corse suspended over it by the neck, whilst the flame flashing through the vault, gleamed on a throng of hideous and ghastly features that came forward through the smoke. With the desperate valour of a man who sees destruction before him, he ran furi- ously forward ; an universal shriek burst forth, and the fire, rising with tenfold brilliance, placed full in view the dreadful form of his infernal guide, dilated into horror itself ; her face was pale as dea*:h, her eyes were wide open, dead, and fixed, a horrible grin sate upon her features, her lips black and tumid were drawn back, disclosing a set of large blue teeth, and her hair, standing stiffly erect, was of a withered red. Fitzowen felt his blood freeze within him his limbs became enervated, and at this moment when resistance on his part appeared almost impossible, a door bursting open at the ex- tremity of the vault, in rushed the form of Walleran, who wielding a battle-axe, aimed a blow at Henry, that, situated as he then was, and rendered torpid through the influence of Vol, I. O 194 LITERARY NO. X, preternatural agency, he conceived would be effectual for his destruction. In this, however, he was, fatally for himself, mistaken, for no sooner was he perceived, than the effect of t he enchantment ceased ; indignation swelling at the heart of Henry, impelled the lingering 'fluid, his cheek flushed with the crimson tide, his limbs recovered their elasticity and tone, and avoiding with active vigour the death that was intended him, he sheathed his falchion in the breast of his opponent, tvhq, having wasted his impetuous strength upon the air, had thus exposed himself to instant ruin. HOUR S. J 95 NUMBER XI. Fairy elves, Whose midnight revels by a forest side, Or fountain, some belated peasant sees, Or dreams he sees, while over head the moon Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth Wheels her pale course, they on their mirth and dance Intent, with jocund music charm his ear ; At once w T ith joy and fear his heart rebounds. MiLTON- Waller an dropt lifeless on the ground, ancl the dreadful appearances in the vault, the fire, and all its apparatus, immediately vanished, whilst loud howlings and lamentations were heard at a distance in the air. A profound silence, however, now ensued throughout the castle, and Henry, by the light of the moon, as it streamed through the grated window, beheld at his feet the bleeding corpse of his antagonist. Starting from the contemplation of his fallen enemy, he resolved to explore the ruins in I96 LITERARY NO. XI. search of Adeline, of whose concealment in some part of the building, he entertained not the smallest doubt, and, apprehensive now of little opposition, he once more attempted those stairs, in ascending which he had formerly encountered so many terrors. He reached the gallery without any interruption, and passing through the folding doors into the apartment already described, discovered at one end, and on the very spot where he had beheld the - tremendous vision of the agonizing wretch, a narrow,winding,and arched passage, and which, taking a circular direction, probably passed into the opposite portion of the great tower. Here he entered, but had not proceeded far before the sound as of soft and very distant music reached his ear ; and shortly afterward was dis- tinctly heard the murmur of falling water; Sounds such as these, and in such a place, greatly surprised him, and hastening forward to ascertain from what quarter they originated, he found himself suddenly immersed in a very eold and damp vapour, whose density was such, that for a short time it totally suffocated the ■smallest ray of light j in a few minutes, how- ever, it began in some measure to clear away* accompanied with a whispering noise, whilst «0. XI. HOURS. I97 vast eddies and gusts cf thin vapour passed him with a whirling motion. He now perceived himself in a kind of large cavern whose sides were of unhewn stone, aad from the roof were pendent numbers of beautiful stalactites, from whose points fell, at intervals, with a tinkling sound, large drops of water, whilst the dying notes of distant harps, the gurgling of ob- structed currents, and the sighings of the restless vapour, formed a harmony so singular, yet so soothing, that when united to the surrounding v chill and torpid atmosphere, seemed calculated to inspire the most profound repose. Fitz- owen now advanced a little further into the cavity, and, thrdugh the chasms of the ever fluctuating mist, discerned, hanging from the centre of the roof, a vast globe, which emitted rays of the palest hue, and which, in passing through the turbid vapour, shed a kind of twilight. Whilst pondering on the purport of this very peculiar scene, he felt a heaviness, and a ten- dency to sleep creep upon him, accompanied . with an indistinctness and confusion of intel- lect ; at this instant, however, a mass of vapour pushing by him, the light gleamed mpre stea- °3 J 98 LITERARY" NO. Xf„. dily, and he beheld in an excavation of die ad^ jacent wall, and recumbent on a couch, what he conceived to be a human body. Curiosity was now so powerfully excited, as completely to. expel the approaching torpor, and drawing nearer the object of his attention, he could hear the deep breathings of a person in profound sleep \ the next moment he could perceive the garments of female attire, and in the succeed- ing instant hung with rapture and astonishment over the well-known features of his beloved Adeline. The globe shed a silvery and pre- ternatural whiteness over her form, and the rose had left her cheek ; she lay with her head reclined upon her hand, and the utmost tran- quillity sate upon her countenance, though, now and then, a deep-drawn sigh would indi- cate the tissue of idea. Henry stood, for some moments, riveted to the spot, then, starting from his reverie, he wound his arms about her beauteous frame, and impressed upon her lips a glowing kiss — she awoke, and instantly a tremendous tempest burst upon them, loud thunder shook the earth, and a whirlwind, rushing through the pile, tore it from its foundations. -Nu. XI. HOURS, I99 The lovers recovering from a trance, which the conflict of the elements had occasioned, found themselves seated on some mossy turf, and around them the soft, the sweet and tran- quil scepery of a summer's moon -light night. Enraptured with this sudden and unexpected change, they rose gently off the ground ; over their heads towered a large and majestic oak, at whose foot they believed some kind and com- passionate being had placed them. Delight and gratitude dilated their hearts, and advanc- ing from beneath the tree, whose gigantic branches spread a large extent of shade, a vale, beautiful and romantic, through which ran a clear and deep stream, came full in view • they walked to the edge of the water ; the moon shone with mellow lustre on its surface, and its banks, fringed with shrubs, breathed a per- fume more delicate than the odours of the east. On one side, the ground, covered with a vivid, soft, and downy verdure, stretched for a con- siderable extent to the borders of a large forest, which, sweeping round, finally closed up the valley ; on the other, it was broken into abrupt and rocky masses swarded with moss, and from whose clefts grew thick and spreading trees, the roots of which, washed by many a fall of O 4 200 LITE It A R Y NO. XI, ' water, hung bare and matted from their craggy beds. Henry and his Adeline forgot in this deli- cious vale all their former sufferings, and giving up their minds to the pleasing influence of curiosity and wonder, they determined to explore the place by tracing the windings of the stream. Scarcely had they entered upon this plan, when music of the most ravishing sweetness filled the air, sometimes it seemed to float along the valley, sometimes it stole along the surface of the water, now it died away among the woods, and now, with deep and mellow symphony, it swelled upon the gale. Fixed in astonishment, they scarce ventured to breathe, every sense, save that of hearing, seemed absorbed ; and when the last faint warblings melted on the air, they started from the spot, solicitous to know from what being those more than human strains had parted j but nothing appeared in view ; the moon, full * and unclouded, shone with unusual lustre ; and filled with hope, they again pursued the wind- ings of the water, which, conducting to the narrowest part of the valley, continued their course through the wood. This they entered NO. Xf. HO U R S. by a path smooth, but narrow and perplexed, where, although its branches were so numeroua that no preference could be given, or any direct route long persisted in, yet every turn pre- sented something to amuse, something to sharpen the edge of research. The beauty of the trees, through whose interstices the moon gleamed in the most picturesque manner, the glimpses of the water, and the notes of the nightingale, who now began to fill the valley with her song, were more than sufficient to take off the sense of fatigue, and they wan- dered on, still eager to explore, still ardent for further discovery. The wood now became more thick and obscure, and at length almost dark, when, the path taking suddenly an oblique direction, they found themselves on the edge of a circular lawn, whose tint and softness were beyond compare, and which seemed to have been lightly brushed by fairy feet. A number of fine old trees, around whose boles crept the ivy and the woodbine, rose at irregular dis- tances, here they mingled into groves, and there, separate and emulous of each other, vied 202 LITERARY NO, XI. in spiral elegance, or magnitude of form. The water, which had been for some time con- cealed, now murmured through a thousand beds, and visiting each little flower, added vigour to its vegetation, and poignancy to its fragrance. Along the edges of the wood, and beneath the shadows of the trees, an innumera- ble host of glow-worms lighted their innocuous fires, lustrous as tjie gems of Golconda; and, desirous yet longer to enjoy the scene, they went forward with light footsteps on the lawn ; all was calm, and, except the breeze of night, that sighed soft and sweetly through the world of leaves, a perfect silence prevailed. Not many minutes, however, had elapsed, before the same enchanting music, to which they had listened with so much rapture in the vale, again arrested their at tention, and presently they dis- covered on the border of the lawn, just rising- above the wood, and floating on the bosom of the air, a being of the most delicate form; from his shoulders streamed a tunic of the tenderest blue, his wings and feet were clothed in downy silver, and in his grasp he had a wand white as the mountain snow. He rose swiftly in the air, his brilliance became excessive from, NO. XI. HOU RS. 203 the lunar rays, his song echoed through the vault of night, but having quickly diminished to the size and appearance of the evening star, it died away, and the next moment he was lost in ether. The lovers still fixed their view on that part of the heavens where the vision had disappeared, and shortly had the pleasure of again seeing the star-like radiance, which in an instant unfolded itself into the full and fine dimensions of the beauteous being, who, having collected dew from the cold vales of Saturn, now descended rapidly towards the earth, and waving his wand as he passed athwart the woods, a number of like form and garb flew round him, and all alighting on the lawn, sepa- rated at equal distances on its circumference, and then shaking their wings, which spread a perfume through the air, burst into one general song. Henry and Adeline, who, apprehensive of being discovered, had retreated within the shadow of some mossy oaks, now waited with eager expectation the event of so singular a scene. In a few moments a bevy of elegant nymphs, dancing two by two, issued from the £Q4 LITERARY NO, XI, wood on the right, and an equal number of warlike knights, accompanied by a band of minstrels, from that on the left. The knights r were clothed in green ; .on their bosoms shone a plate of burnished steel, and in their hands they grasped a golden targe, and lance of beamy lustre. The nymphs, whose form and symmetry were beyond the youthful poet's dream, were dressed in robes of white, their zones were azure dropt with diamonds, and their light brown hair decked with roses, hung in ample ringlets. So quick, so light and airy, Was their motion, that the turf, the flowers, shrunk not beneath the gentle pressure, and each smiling on her favourite knight, he flung his brilliant arms aside, and mingled in the dance. Whilst they thus flew in rapid measures over the lawn, the lovers, forgetting their situation, and impatient to salute the assembly, involuntarily stept forward, and instantaneous- ly, a shrill and hollow gust of wind murmured through the woods, the moon dipt into a cloud, and the knights, the nymphs, and aerial spirits, vanished from the view, leaving the astonished NO. XI. H O U R S. 205 pair to repent at leisure, their precipitate intru- sion ; scarce, however, had they time to deter- mine what plan they should pursue, when a gleam of light flashed suddenly along the hori- zon, and the beauteous being whom they first beheld in the air, stood before them ; he waved his snow-white wand, and pointing to the wood, which now appeared sparkling with a thousand fires, moved gently on. Henry and his ami- able companion felt an irresistible impulse which compelled them to follow, and having penetrated the wood, they perceived many bright rays of light, which darting like the beams of the sun through every part of it, most beautifully illumined the shafts of the trees. As they advanced forward, the radiance became more intense, and converged towards a centre, and the fairy being turning quickly round, commanded them to kneel down, and having squeezed the juice of an herb into their eyes, bade ,them now proceed, but that no mortal eye, unless its powers of vision were adapted to the scene, could endure the glory that would shortly burst upon them. Scarcely had he uttered these words when they entered an amphitheatre > in its centre was a throne of 206 LITERARY 180. Xf* ivory inlaid with sapphires, on which sate & . female form of exquisite beauty, a plain coro- net of gold obliquely crossed her flowing hair, ahd her robe of white satin hung negligent pie folds. Around her stood five-and- twenty nymphs clothed in white. and gold, and 'holding lighted tapers; beyond these were fifty of the aerial beings, their wings of downy silver stretched for flight, and each a burning taper in his hand; and lastly, on the circumference of the amphitheatre, shone one hundred knights in mail of tempered steel, in one hand they shook aloft a targe of massy diamond, and in the other flashed a taper. So excessive was the reflection, that the targes had the lustre of an hundred suns 3 and, when shaken, sent forth streams of vivid lightning: from the gold, the silver, and the sapphires, rushed a flood of tinted light, that mingling, threw upon the eye a series of revolving hues. Henry and Adeline, impressed with awe, with wonder and delight, fell prostrate on the ground, whilst the fairy spirit advancing, knelt and presented to the queen a crystal vase. She rose, she waved her hand, and smiling, bade NO. XI. H O 17 R S. 207 them to approach, " Gentle strangers/' she exclaimed, cc let not fear appal your hearts-, for to them whom courage, i:ruth, and piety have distinguished, our friendship and our love are given. Spirits of the blest we are, our sweet employment to befriend the wretched and the weary, to lull the torture of anguish, and the horror of despair. Ah ! never shall the tear of innocence, or the plaint of sorrow, the pang of injured merit, or the sigh of hopeless love^ implore our aid in vain. Upon the moon-beam do we float, and light as air, per- vade the habitations of men ; and hearken, O favoured mortals ! I tell you spirits pure from vice are present to your inmost thoughts , ^when terror, and when madness, when spectres and when death surrounded you, our influence put to flight the ministers of darkness ; we placed you in the moon-light vale, and now upon your heads we pour the planetary dew : go, happy pair! from Hecate's dread agents we have freed you, from wildering fear and gloomy superstition."— She ended, and the lovers, impatient to express their gratitude, were about to speak, ZOS LIIERA RY NO. XI* when suddenly the light turned pale, raid died away, the spirits lied, and music soft and sweet was heard remotely in the air. They started, and, in place of the refulgent scene of magic, beheld a public road, Fitzowen's horse cropping the grass which grew upon its edge, and a village at a little distance, on whose spire the rising sun had shed his earliest beams. NO. XII. HOUR S. 209 NUMBER XII. Tale tuum carmen nobis, divine poeta, Quale sopor fessis in gramine — quale per ssstutn Dulcis aquae saliente sitim restinguerc rivo. Virgil. This beautiful, but too much neglected poem, had ere this attracted the admiration it so justly merits, had not the stern critique of Dr. Johnson intervened to blast its rising fame. Ajuster relish of the excellences ofpoetry,,and a more candid style of criticism, may be con- sidered as a characteristic of several of the firft literary men of the present day; and but for the harsh censure of the author of the Rambler, the pages of Dyer would now, perhaps, have been familiar to every lover and judge of nervous and highly finished description. As it is, however, they are seldom consulted, fronv an idea, that little worthy of applause would gratify the inquirer. To remove, therefore* Vol. I. P 2AO LITERARY NO. XII. the prejudices which have been sown, and to place before the reader some of the numerous passages of the Fleece which are written in the genuine spirit of poetry, form the purport of our paper. Johnson, to occasional felicity of diction 3 great purity of moral, and energy of thought, united a very considerable portion of critical acumen, and his Lives of Dryden and Pope are noble specimens of his powers of discrimi- nation j yet, notwithstanding this rare combi- nation of striking qualities, he was deficient in that sensibility to, and enthusiasm for, the charms of nature, in that relish for the simple and pathetic, so absolutely necessary to just criticism in poetry. To these defalcations were superadded an unreasonable antipathy to blank verse, a constitutional ruggedness of temper, and a bigoted, though well-meant, adhesion to some very extravagant political and religious tenets. His biographical details have suffered much from these peculiarities of temper and of taste; and a Milton, an Akenside, a Collins, a Dyer, and a Gray, might upbraid the Literary Dictator for his bitter and illiberal invective, his churlish and parsimonious praise, his great and various misrepresentations, NO. XII. HOURS. 211 To refute his strictures upon Dyer can prove a task of no very formidable kind, and may restore to due rank a poem which contains a vast variety of landscapes drawn and coloured in the most spirited and fascinating style. " Of The Fleece," says our harsh critic, % which never became popular, and is now universally neglected, I can say little that is likely to recal it to attention. The wool- comber and the poet appear to me such dis- cordant natures, that an attempt to bring them together is to couple the serpent with the fowl. When Dyer, whose mind was not unpoetical, has done his utmost, by interesting his reader in our native commodity, , by interspersing rural imagery and incidental digressions, by clothing small images in great words, and by all the writer's arts of delusion, the meanness naturally adhering, and the irreverence habitu- ally annexed to trade, and manufacture, sink him under insuperable oppression; and the disgust which blank verse, encumbering and encumbered, superadds to an unpleasing sub- ject, soon repels the reader, however will rag to be pleased." p % 212 L I T ERAR Y NO. XIX, " Let me, however, honestly report whatever may counterbalance this weight of censure. I have been told that Akenside, who, upon a poetical question, has a right to be heard, said, cc That he would regulate his opinion of the reigning taste by the fate of Dyer's Fleece, for, if that were ill received, he should not think it any longer reasonable to expect fame frpm excellence."* In attending to these animadversions it may, in the first place, be observed, that few poetical productions of great and original merit ever rapidly became favourites with the public. They, in general, require their more brilliant passages to be developed and appreciated by men of sound judgment and taste, before they can be relished orunderstoodby the multitude of those who read merely for amusement, and who possess, perhaps, no vigour of understand- ing, or power of selection, adequate to form a just estimate for themselves. No great length of time had elapsed between the publication of the Fleece in 1757, and the critical effusions of Johnson ; and, if it be considered that * Johnson's Lives, Vol. iv. p. 321. no. xir. hours. 213 didactic poetry, as not immediately addressing the passions, can never hope to vie with the dramatic, in point of celerity of introduction, it may be affirmed that a sufficient space had not been allowed for the acquisition of nume- rous admirers, when the Doctor passed sentence upon the work, and thwarted its progress towards public esteem. That it was univer- sally neglected, however, at the period when the Biography of Johnson was published, is by no means the fact; Dr. Warton, perhaps the first of our critics, and whose merit Johnson has himself acknowledged in the highest terms, has classed the Fleece, in every edition of his Essay on Pope., among the excellent pieces of the didactic kind w r hich the moderns have produced ; and though, as: we have already observed, its merits are not duly admitted, yet has it been occasionally quoted from the era of its publication to the present times, and even a friend of our Biographer, Scott of Amwell, has termed it the " noblest of didactic poems'' He who shall peruse the extracts from the Fleece appended to these observa- tions, will hear, with no small indignation, the pritic asserting that he " can say little that \% likely to recal it to attention*" Had the 214 LITERARY KO. XII. beautiful passages selected for this sketch, and about which, 1 should imagine, there can be no difference of opinion, been merely adduced in the pages of Johnson, the attention of every man of taste and feeling had been fixed, and the Doctor had been spared, perhaps, the trouble and the reproach of censuring what must be pronounced excellent the moment it is known. I greatly suspect, however, that the work which is thus severely condemned, was little familiar to the critic, and had been thrown aside, after a very cursory survey, with every prejudice against the subject, and its mode of versification, I cannot otherwise account for a blindness so total toward some of the finest specimens of descriptive poetry. To convey instruction in the garb of plea- sure, is the aim of the didactic poet: and the more rugged and intractable the theme, the greater skill and genius are required in smooth- ing its asperities, and in decorating it with flowers of choicest hue and odour. A diffi- culty removed affords no trivial delight; and in didactic poetry those bards have succeeded best who have chosen a subject neither too elevated on the one hand, nor too mean and 3 NO. XII. HOURS. 215 despicable, on the other. The Pleasures of Imagination excite expectations which are not, perhaps, fully gratified ; whilst the poems of Lucretius and Virgil, and even the Syphilis of Fracastorius, and the Art of Preserving Health of Armstrong, delight us with -beauties which cannot be anticipated, which seem the work of enchantment, and possess a double fascination from the grateful impulse of surprise. When Dr. Johnson speaks of the discordance between the wool-comber and the poet, he would induce his readers to suppose that the employ- ment of the former was the sole subject of the poem under our consideration : but what must be their astonishment, on surveying the work, to discover that the labours of the loom occupy but a small portion of the third book! In short, no theme, in this species of his art, seems better adapted for the felicitous exertions of the poet than the one Dyer has chosen : and to shew how completely the learned biographer has misrepresented thevery nature of the poem he was criticising, I shall briefly mention the chief topics of every book. The first is entirely employed in the breeding, tending, and shearing of sheep, occupations intimately connected with all that is delightful in rural p 4 I 2l6 LITERARY NO. Xll# imagery, pastoral simplicity, and domestic enjoyment. The second describes the diver- sities and preservation of the FJeece ; the coun- tries in ancient and modern times esteemed for wool ; the history of the Argonautic expe- dition ; the decay of arts and sciences 5 their revival at Venice; the discoveries of Bishop Blaise; the dying of wool, and the advantages and utility of trade. The opening of the third contains a description of spinning, of the loom, and of weaving; then follow the praise of country work-houses ; a prospect of Burstal and Leeds ; a history of the art of weaving, its removal from the Netherlands and settlement in England ; an account of Saracenic tapestry ; a view of the arts and wealth of different coun- tries ; a view of the roads and rivers through which our manufactures are conveyed ; a com- parison between our navigations and those of other countries ; a relation of the attempt to join the Nile and Red Sea, the Ocean and Mediterranean, through the medium of canals; an account of the union of the Trent and Severn with the Thames, and a view of the Thames and of the Port of London. The fourth displays a still more fertile field : for the poet, in tracing the exportation of our manu-? NO. XII. HOURS. 217 factures, visits almost every part of the globe. Spain, the Mediterranean, the Baltic, Peters- burg, the ancient and modern course to the Indies, Africa, Persia, Hindostan, the Spice Islands, and China, are introduced and adorned with various picturesque circumstances. The journey of the caravans, also, from Petersburg to Pekin, is related at considerable length, and abounds with many well-drawn and interesting scenes. A transition is then made to North and South America, and the poem concludes with some apposite reflections on the com- merce and naval power of Great Britain. From this analysis it will be immediately perceived, that Johnson has misled the public, that the idea he would insinuate is totally un- founded, and that few subjects can boast a greater variety of materials, or more calculated for poetic ornament, than the Fleece. The next paragraph with which the Doctor has favoured us contains a glaring incom . 1- ency ; after acknowledging that Dyer possessed a mind not ttnpoetical, he immediately adds, that he has also interested his reader in our native commodity, that he has interspersed rural 2l8 LITERARY NO. XII. imagery and incidental digressions, yet, not- withstanding; this extorted encomium, the succeeding words give the extraordinary infor- mation, that, although the reader be interested in our native commodity, he is, nevertheless, disgusted and repelled by the subject, however willing to be pleased, and that even the poet himself sinks under insuperable oppression from the meanness and irreverence habitually annexed to it. Now, to interest the reader in the subject, to intersperse rural imagery, and incidental digressions, is the very definition of excellence in didactic poetry: and how the poet who has done this, can, at the same time, disgust and repel" his reader, or himself sink under insu- perable oppression, appears to me a most inexplicable position. The truth is, the mean- ness and irreverence are of Johnson's own creation: for the outline of the work includes, as we have seen, especially in the last book, more splendid and magnificent scenery than were ever before attached to any didactic poem. When the Doctor accuses Dyer of clothing small images in great words, he has assuredly NO. XII. HOURS. 219 mistaken the character of his diction, which, for purity, simplicity, and freedom from bombast, is, perhaps, one of our first models. Nothing tumid, nothing in his phraseology too great for the occasion, can, I think, be dis- covered in the Fleece. In those parts which are most purely preceptive, the language is plain ? yet elegant, but never so elevated as to throw an air of burlesque over the subject. From the digressional portion of the poem, where diction more lofty and elaborate could be used with propriety, I shall be able to select some passages which are truly sublime, and several which are justly entitled to the epithets pathetic and descriptive. As to the encumbrance of blank verse, it is well known, that Johnson, owing, perhaps, to the failure of the only attempt he made in that species of versification, held it in utter aversion, and, in general, thought a poem had a claim to little mercy, when clothed in this forbidden dress. In reviewing the wo ks of Dyer, this unhappy prejudice has operated with its wonted force, and has precluded the per- ception of beauties, which, had they been 220 LITERARY NO. XII. enveloped in rhyme, would, without doubt, powerfully have arrested his attention. The blank verse, however, of Dyer calls for decided approbation ; its style of composition is rich and unbroken, and its tones, in general, sweet and varied. Much as I enjoy the melody of Pope and Goldsmith, I am clearly convinced, that in epic and didactic poetry, the more solemn, dignified, and plastic strains of blank verse should ever be the poet's choice. The candid relation which the Doctor has given of Akenside's opinion, should, however, mitigate the indignation which every lover of elegant literature must feel in witnessing a poem so noble in its structure and execution, borne down by the weight of unjustifiable censure. Akenside was an adequate judge of the beau- ties or defects of the Fleece ; his own versifica^- tion is peculiarly harmonious, and he had studied in the same school of painting with the poet he applauds, or, in other words, his scenery is much in the style of Dyer. There is, how- ever, somewhat of elaboration and stiffness in the blank verse of Akenside, which is not di^ g oyerable in the versification of Dyer, KO. XII. HOURS. lit Though from motives of justice, from a wish to rescue a genuine bard from the unme- rited severity of his prejudiced Biographer, 1 have endeavoured to controvert the strictures of Dr. Johnson, the attempt has been con- ducted, I trust, without the smallest petulance, or arrogance. No man can entertain a higher idea of Johnson's intellectual powers as a Lexi- cographer, a Teacher, and a Moralist, than myself ; but poetical criticism was not his pro- vince ; and though in point of style, his Lives be superior, perhaps, to any of his preceding compositions, they are infinitely more disgraced by the inexorable partialities of the man. The following character of Johnson, written by a critic of true taste and acknowledged ability, strikes me as so discriminative, so accordant, for the most part, with my own opinion, that I shall close these observations on the strictures of our great Philologer by quoting it at length. " If a vigorous understanding, a comprehensive knowledge, and a capacity of sound judgment were sufficient qualifications for a work of genuine criticism, no man was ever better fur- nished than he for such an undertaking ; but a certain inelegance of taste, a frigid churlishness of temper, unsubdued and unqualified by that 222, LITERARY STO. XII, melting sensibility, that divine enthusiasm of soul,. which are essential to a hearty relish of poetical composition ; and, above all, an invi- dious depravity of mind, warped by the most unmanly prejudices, and operating in an unre- lenting antipathy to contemporary merit, too often counteracted and corrupted the other virtues of his intellect. Nor am I under any apprehension of being charged with an unjusti- fiable partiality in this opinion of him, when I make no scruple to declare, that, notwithstand- ing some very exceptionable passages, infinitely disgraceful both to his understanding and his heart, I esteem his Lives of the English Poets to be the noblest specimen of entertaining and solid criticism that modern times have pro- duced ; well worthy of ranking on the same shelf with the most distinguished of the an- cients, Aristotle and Quintilian" * Dyer had, in the early part of his life, eagerly embraced the art of painting ; he had imbibed the enthusiasm of the celebrated Richardson, under whom he had placed himself for instruc- tion, and, on leaving his roof, rambled through * Wakefield's Notes on Gray, p. \%. NO, XII. HOURS. 223 Sou tli Wales, sketching the romantic and pas- toral scenery of that delightful province. Not content, however, with the progress he had made in this island, he determined on a voyage to Italy, where, besides studying the inestimable remains of Antiquity, and the best productions of the greatest modern masters, he was accus- tomed to spend whole days in the country about Florence and Rome, transferring to paper the picturesque beauties so profusely scattered over that classic soil. To this attachment to and practice of paint- ing, which, though he afterwards assumed the clerical profession, continued through life, we owe that accuracy, fertility, and warmth of description so conspicuous in all his poems. His Grongar Hill, his Ruins of Rome, and his Fleece, present a series of views not given in the usual florid and unmeaning style, but faithful to nature, and possessing an indivi- duality which strongly interests. In every poem of length, but more especially in one whose professed end is to instruct, a strict attention to method is essential. A luminous arrangement of facts, with apposite 224 LITERARY NO* XII. inference and deduction, ought to be as much an object of attainment, in a didactic poem, as in a didactic essay in prose, and, happily, the production we are now reviewing, is as remark- able for a proper disposition and elucidation of all its various parts, as for its exquisite imagery and appropriate ornament. The four books of the Fleece are, in short, the four exact stages of the progress of an useful and national occupation ; and the care of sheep, the preparation of wool, the labours of the loom, and the exportation of the manufacture, follow in a just and natural order. Having now terminated the preliminary remarks, I shall proceed to adduce such pas- sages as may enable (he reader to judge whether the encomium passed upon the work has been properly founded. Speaking of the different pastures for sheep, the poet inculcates the necessity of avoiding the shelter of nume- rous trees, and of clearing the ground of thorns, furze, and briars, and exemplifies the utility of so doing, by the relation of a fact, which is closed with an exquisite pic- ture of rural and domestic felicity* KO. XII, HOURS. 12^ . I knew a careful swain, Who gave them to the crackling flames, and spread Their dust saline upon the deep'ning grass, And oft with labour-strengthen'd arm he delv'd The draining trench across his verdant slopes, To intercept the small meandering rills Of upper hamlets : haughty trees, that sour The shaded grass, that weaken thorn-set mounds. And harbour villain crows, he rare allow'd ; Only a slender tuft of useful ash, And mingled beech and elm, securely tall, The little smiling cottage warm embowr'd ; The little smiling cottage, where at eve He meets his rosy children at the door, Prattling their welcomes, and his honest wife, With good brown cake and bacon slice, intent To cheer his hunger after labour hard. Book L The pathetic simplicity of the following lines impresses us with a high idea of the author's goodness of heart, whilst the sweetness of the versification, and the beauty of the expression do him equal honour as a poet. Ah ! gentle shepherd, thine the lot to tend, Of all, that feel distress, the most assail'd, Feeble, defenceless : lenient be thy care : Vol. I. Q 226 LITERARY NO. XII But spread around thy tend'rest diligence In flow'ry spring-time, when the new-dropt lamb, Tott'ring with weakness by his mother's side, Feels the fresh world about him ; and each thorn, Hillock, or furrow, trips his feeble feet: O, guard his meek sweet innocence from all Th' innumerous ills, that rush around his life ; Mark the quick kite, with beak and talons prone, Circling the skies to snatch him from the plain ; Observe the lurking crows, beware the brake, There the sly fox the careless minute waits ; Nor trust thy neighbour's dog, nor earth, nor sky : Thy besom to a thousand cares divide. Eurus oft slings his hail; the tardy fields Pay not their promis'd food ; and oft the dam O'er her weak twins with empty udder mourns, Or fails to guard, when the bold bird of prey Alights, and hops in many turns around, And tires her also turning: to her aid Be nimble, and the weakest, in thine arms, Gently convey to the warm cote, and eft, Between the lark's note and the nightingale's, His hungry bleating still with tepid milk : In this soft office may thy children join, And charitable actions learn in sport. Nor yield him to himself, ere vernal airs Sprinkle thy little croft with daisy ilow'rs : Nor yet forget him : life has rising ills. B. £• 3N0. XII. HOURS. 227 Lucretius is here very happily imitated, the artubus infirmis of that poet being not only translated, but accompanied with additional imagery ; and, toward the conclusion, the idea of teaching chanty to the children by their feeding the little lamb, carries with it every moral charm. That the english shepherd may more keenly enjoy the blessings of his temperate clime, the author has contrasted them with the seventy of the polar regions, the dangers of a more fervid sky, and the wandering life of the Arabian Herdsman. Virgil in his Georrics, and Thorn- son in his Summer and Winter, have had recourse to similar expedients, and have given us extended descriptions of the polar and tropical parts of the globe, yet, notwithstanding this anticipation, Dyer has finished his pieces with several original and masterly touches, and the Arabian scene, a picture perfectly his own, is of great value. This, and the northern land- scape, I shall now transcribe. With grateful heart, ye British swains, enjoy Your gentle seasons and indulgent clime. Lo, in the sprinkling clouds, your bleating hills Rejoice with herbage, while the horrid rage Q 2 228 LITERARY NO. XII. Of winter irresistible o'erwhelms TV Hyperborean tracts : his arrowy frosts, That pierce through flinty rocks, the Lappian flies; And burrows deep beneath the snowy world ; A drear abode, from rose diffusing hours, That dance before the wheels of radiant day, Far, far remote ; where, by the squalid light Of fetid oil inflam'd, sea-monster's spume, Or fir wood, glaring in the weeping vault, Twice three slow gloomy months, with various ills Sullen he struggles ; such the love of life ! His lank and scanty legs around him press, As, hunger-stung, to gritty meal he grinds The bones of fish, or inward bark of trees, Their common sustenance. B.i. . In this strongly featured sketch, the poet, perhaps, has given too gloomy a delineation. Though, in the eyes of the British shepherd,, the Laplander seem deprived of every comfort of life, yet no being possesses greater inde- pendence, or is more satisfied v/ith the pleasures he obtains. Thomson has given a more cheer- ful view of these simple people, and terms them a " thrice happy race/ 1 " No farmer in the milder countries of Europe can more rejoice at viewing his meadows clothed with cheerful green, than the Laplander at the sight of his NO. XII. HOURS. 22^ drear} 7 moors whitened over with the vegetable which is to be the sustenance of his herd. In these wild solitudes he passes day and night, abroad, in the bitterest inclemency of the sea- sons, securely wrapped in garments supplied by his faithful Rein-deer ; the milk and flesh • of which is his principal food, and the number his only riches. This is the pastoral life in Lapland : a striking contrast indeed to that in the soft climates of Arcadia and Sicily; yet not without its charms to the simple native, nor unprovided with subjects for descriptive poetry."* The celebrated Linneus appears to have been greatly struck with the unsophisti- cated life of these virtuous savages, and, in his Flora Lapponica, has introduced a pas- sage, illustrative of their modes of existence, written with an elegance and an energy not usually discoverable in his productions: " O felix Lappo ! qui in ultimo angulo mundi sic bene lates contentus et innocens. Tu nec times annonas caritatem, nec Martis prselia, quse ad oras tuas pervenire nequeunt, sed florentissimas Europe provincias et urbes, unico momento, ssepe dejiciunt, ■ delent. Tu * Aikin's Essay on the Application of Natural History to Poetry, p. 144. Q3 23O LITERARY NO. XII. dermis hie sub tua pelle ab omnibus curis, comentionibus, rixis liber, ignorans quid sit iiividia. Tu nulla nobti nisi tonantis Jovis fulmina. Tu ducis innocentissimos tuos annos ultra centenarium numerum cuni facili seneo tute et summa sanitate. Te latent myriades morborum nobis Europseis communes. Tu vivis in sylvis, avis instar, nec sementem facis, nec rtletisj tamen alit te Deus optimus optime. Tua ornamenta sunt tremula arborum folia, graminosique luci. Tuus potus aqua crystal- lines pelluciditatis, qua? nec cerebrum insania adficit, nec strumas in Alpibus tuis producit. Cibus tuus est vel verno tempore piscis recens ? vel £estivo serum lactis, vel autumnali tetrao, vel hiemali, caro recens rangiferina absque sale et pane, singula vice unico constans ferculo, edis, dum securus e lecto surgis, dumque eum petis, necnosti venena nostra, quae latent sub dulci melli, Te non obruit scorbutus, nec febris intermittens, nec obesitas, nec podagra; fibroso gaudes corpore et alacri, animoque libero. Osancta Innocentia, estne hie tuus thronus inter Faunos in summo septentrione, inque vilissima habita terra? numne sic prefers stragula hsec betulina mollibus serico tectis plumis ? Sic etiam credidere veteres, nec male," 1 NO. XII. HOURS. 23I O favoured race ! whom partial Heav'n design'd To free from all the cares that vex mankind'! In life's mad sc&nes while wayward nations join. One silent corner of the world is thine ; From busy toil, from raging paffions free, And war, dire stain of lapsed humanity ! Far from thy plains the hideous monster roves, Nor dares pollute thy consecrated groves. Indulgent Nature yields her free supplies, And bids thy simple food around thee rise. Along thy shores the scaly myriads play, And gath'ring birds pursue their airy way : Gurgles, to quench thy thirst, the crystal spring; And ranging herds their milky tribute bring. No fell disease attacks thy hardy frame, Or damps with sullen cloud the vital flame ; But flies to plague, amid their tainted sky, The sick'ning sons of full-fed luxury. Thy aged sires can boast a cent'ry past ; And life's clear lamp burns briskly to the last. In woods and groves, beneath the trembling spray, Glides on, in sweet content, thy peaceful day: Gay exercise with ruddy health combin'd, And (far beyond the rest ! j the freedom of the mind. Here stands secure, beneath the northern zone, O sacred Innocence, thy turf-built throne ; 3 Tis here thou wav'st aloft thy snowy wings ; • Far from the pride of courts and pomp of kings! Shaw's General Zoology, vol. ii. part ii. p. 272. Q4 LITERARY NO. XI*. The Arabians have been shepherds from the earliest ages of the world, and have preserved their manners and customs, their liberty and dominion, with an uniformity and success which partake almost of the miraculous. Their independent simplicity of life, and the continual migration of their tribes, have fur- nished their native poets with many picturesque and interesting descriptions. In our own country, some attempts have been made to introduce arabian imagery into the eclogue, but we seldom meet with it in poetry of a higher cast. Dyer however has appositely interwoven into his Fleece a most delightful picture of these wandering people ; The weary Arabs roam from plain to pkin, Guiding the languid herd in quest of food; And shift their little home's uncertain scene With frequent farewell : strangers, pilgrims all, As were their fathers. No sweet fall of rain May there be heard : nor sweeter liquid lapse Of river, o'er the pebbles gliding by In murmurs : goaded by the rage of thirst, Daily they journey to the distant clefts Of craggy rocks, where gloomy palms o'erhang The ancient wells, deep sunk by toil immense, T.oil of the patriarchs, with sublime intent NO. XII. HOURS. 233 Themselves and long posterity to serve. There, at the public hour of sultry noon, They share the bev'rage, when to wat'ring come, And grateful umbrage, all the tribes around, And their lean flocks, whose various bleatings fill The echoing caverns: then is absent none, Fair nymph or shepherd, each inspiring each To wit, and song, and dance, and active feats; In the same rustic scene, where Jacob won Fair Rachel's bosom, when a rock's vast weight From the deep dark-mouth'd well his strength remov'd, And to her circling sheep refreshment gave. B. i. The first book concludes with a description of the rural festivities at a sheep-shearing on the banks of the Severn : Beneath each blooming arbour all is joy And lusty merriment : w 7 hile on the grass The mingled youth in gaudy circles sport, We think the golden age again return'd, And all the fabled Dryades in dance. Leering they bound along, with laughing air, To the shrill pipe, and deep remurm'ring chords Of th' ancient harp, or tabor's hollow sound. W hile the old apart, upon a bank reclin'd, Attend the tuneful carol, softly mixt 2.34 LITERARY NO.XlL With every murmur of the sliding wave, And ev'iy warble of the feather'd choir ; Music of paradise ! which still is heard, When the heart listens. ■ B. i. The close of these lines is pre-eminently beautiful. A song, which displays some elegantly moral and rural imagery, is now sung by two shepherds, and the young men and maidens, according to a custom in Wales, sprinkle the river with flowers. After the celebration of these rites, they retire to a ban- quet ; which is thus described : „ — now the mossy bank Is gaily circled, and the jolly cheer Dispers'd in copious measure; early fruits, And those of frugal store, in husk or rind, Kteep'd grain, and curdled milk with dulcet cream Soft temper'd, in full merriment they quaff, And cast about their gibes ; and some apace Whistle to roundelays : their little ones Look on delighted : while the mountain woods, And winding valleys, with the various notes Of pipe, sheep, kine, and birds, and liquid brooks, Unite their echoes: near at hand the wide Majestic wave of Severn slowly rolls HO. XII. HOURS. 235 Along the deep-divided glebe: the flood, And trading bark with low contracted sail, Linger among the reeds and copsy banks To listen, and to view the joyous scene. B. i. The whole of this first book may be consi- dered as a kind of extended pastoral, inter- spersed with precepts relative to the rearing and tending of sheep. I know not, in the range of poet r y, a subject more pregnant with all that is lovely in landscape, or engaging in simplicity of manners and sentiment. I NUMBER XIII. tu — nobis Suppeditas praecepta, tuisque ex chartis Fioriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia limatit, Omnia nos itidem depascimur aurea dicta, Aurea, perpetua semper dignissirna vita. Lucretius. The second and third books of the Fleece have not the advantage of a theme quite so inviting as the first ; but the poet has taken care to adorn them with a variety of episodic parts, some of which will be ranked among the choicest products of the muse. After noting the superiority of the combing wool of this island, the author expresses him- self anxious to prevent its fradulent exporta- tion ; then, alluding to his clerical profession, he closes the passage with a precept of the £38 LITERARV NO. Xlli. purest morality, and delivered in a style re* markably chaste and perspicuous. For me, 'tis time to pray, that men regard Their occupations with an honest heart, And cheerful diligence : like the useful bee, To gather for the hive not sweets alone, But wax, and each material ; pleas'd to find Whate'er may sooth distress, .and raise the falPn In life's rough race : O, be it as my wish !— For this, I w r ake the weary hours of rest ; With this desire, the merchant I attend ; By this impell'd, the shepherd's hut I seek, .And, as he tends his flock, his lectures hear Attentive, pleas'd with pure simplicity, And rules divulg'd beneficent to sheep : Or turn the compass o'er the painted chart, To mark the ways of traffic ; Volga's stream, Cold Hudson's cloudy streights ; warm Afric's cape, Latium's firm roads, the Ptolemean fosse, And China's long canals; those noble works, Those higli effects of civilizing trade, Employ me, sedulous of public weal : Yet not unmindful of my sacred charge ; Thus also mindful, thus devising good, At vacant seasons, oft ; when evening mild Purples the valleys, and the shepherd counts His flock, returning to the quiet fold, With dumb complacence : for Religion, this,— NO. XIII* HOURS. 239 To give our ev'ry comfort to distress, And follow virtue with an humble mind ; This pure religion. B. ii. The very impressive termination of these fine lines is a copy from the last verse of the first chapter of the General Epistle of James , a verse which, for beauty of diction, for tenderness of precept, and moral, must be dear alike to virtue and to taste. " Pure re- ligion, and undefiled before God and the Fa- ther, is this, — To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world/' If the latter part of the ensuing quotation be not an instance of the true sublime, I must confess myself totally ignorant of its nature. The passage in Italics conveys to my mind-, images truly magnificent and great. ; ; 1 The powerful sun Hot India's zone with gaudy pencil paints, And drops delicious tints o'er hill and dale, Which Trade to us conveys. Not tints alone, Trade to the good physician gives his balms; Gives cheering cordials to th' afflicted heart: LITERARY NO. XIII, Gives, to the Wealthy, delicacies high ; Gives, to the curious, works of nature rare ; And when the priest displays, in just discourse^ Him* the all-wise Creator, and declares His presence, power, and goodness, unconfin'd, 'Tis Trade, attentive voyager, who fills His lips with argument. To censure Trade, Or hold her busy people in contempt, Let none presume,— ! ~ for they The clearest sense of Deity receive, Who view the widest prospect of his works, Ranging the globe with trade thro' various climes : Who see the signature of boundless love, Nor less the judgment of Almighty Power, That warn the wicked, and the wretch who 'scapes From human justice: who, astonish'd, view Etna's loud thunders and tempestuous fires ; The dust of Carthage ; desert shores of Nile ; Or Tyre's abandoned summit, crown'd of old With stately tow'rs ; whose merchants, from their isles, And radiant thrones, assembled in her marts ; Whither Arabia, whither Kedar, brought Their shaggy goats, their flocks, and bleating lambs ; Where rich Damascus pil'd his fleeces white, Prepar'd and thirsty for the double tint, And flow'ring shuttle. While t/Y admiring world Crowded her streets ; ah ! then the hand of pride S<;w y d imperceptible his poisonous weed y XIII. HOURS. 24I Which crept destructive up her lofty domes, As ivy creeps around the gracef ul trunk Of some tall oak. Her lofty domes no more % Not ev'n the ruins of her pomp remain, Not ev'n the dust they sunk in ; by the breath Of the Omnipotent offended hurl* d Down to the bottom of the stormy deep. B.ii. The five concluding lines of this extract may vie with any in English poetry; the con- struction is bold and striking, and the last line but one peculiarly forcible in its expression. In treating of the different methods of spin- ning* the poet observes that many yet adhere to the use of the ancient distaff, which being fixed to the bosom, the spindle is cast as the person walks. This was of old, in no inglorious days, The mode of spinning, when th' Egyptian prince A golden distaff gave that beauteous nymph, Too beauteous Helen ; no uncourtly gift Theiij when each gay diversion of the fair Led to ingenious use. Vol. L U 242 LITERARY NO.XIII. This useful little machine has been likewise immortalised in the twenty-eighth Idyllium of Theocritus, which, accompanied with the present of an ivory distaff, is addressed to the Wife of Nicias, a Milesian Physician, and the intimate friend of the poet. It is, perhaps, the most interesting piece in the collection of the Sicilian, and places the character ofTheugenis in every amiable and domestic light. The sensibility and affectionate esteem which illu- mine every line of this elegant , production induce me to insert a portion of it in the ver- sion of Mr. Polwhele. Theocritus, conveying his instructive gift, invokes Minerva, the patroness of the Woof, to transport him safe to the towers of Nileus : Thither we ask fair winds to waft us o'er, That Nicias, by the sweet-ton'd Graces blest, Their hallow'd offspring, may with lettered lore And friendly converse charm his welcome guest. Thee, Distaff, thee, of polish'd ivory fram'd, I bear, meet present to his lovely wife : So shall her frugal industry be fam'd, The genuine model of domestic life ; — Nor would I bear thee, Distaff, to the dome, Where dissipation reigns, and idle mirth ; NO. XIII, HOURS. Thee who, amidst Sicilians pasture bloom, Tracest to Archia's city walls thy birth ; A happier mansion be thy lot to gain, Where lives my friend, whose health -restoring aid Lulls with salubrious balms the throbs of pain, And guards Miletus' sons-from Pluto's shade. Thus shall thy fair possessor rise in fame, By thee recal to mind her tuneful guest ; And many a one, that marks thee, shall exclaim,, " Though but a trivial favour be possest, " 'Tis for the giver's sake the gift we boast, " And what a friend bestows we value most !' 5 About the period of the publication of the Fleece, Work -houses for the poor had been recommended, and erected in several of the mercantile parts of the kingdom, as Bristol, Birmingham, &c. &c. On these noble insti- tutions, which every friend to humanity would wish to see conducted upon a scale of still greater utility and extention, our worthy author, whose heart expands with delight at the prospect of the happiness they are likely to diffuse, bestows unqualified praise, and exhorts the pauper, in the following ener- getic strains, to avail himself of the offered blessing. 244 LITER A R Y NO. XIII. — Ho, ye poor, who seek, Among the dwellings of the diligent, For sustenance unearn'd ; who stroll abroad From house to house, with mischievous intent, Feigning misfortune : Ho, ye lame, ye blind; Ye languid limbs, with real want oppressed, Who tread the rough highways and mountains wild, Through storms, and rains, and bitterness of heart ; Ye children of affliction, be compell'd To happiness : the long-wish'd daylight dawns, When charitable rigour shall detain Your step-bruis'd feet. Ev'n now the sons of trade, Where'er their cultivated hamlets smile, Erect the mansion : here soft fleeces shine ; The card awaits you, and the comb, and wheel : Here shroud you from the thunder of the storm ; No rain shall wet your pillow: here abounds Pure bev'rage ; here your viands are prepared \ To heal each sickness the physician waits, And priest entreats to give your Maker praise. E. iii. The celebration of Rivers has ever been a favourite topic with the poets ; and Spenser, Drayton, Milton and Pope have vied with each other, and the ancients, in descriptions of this kind. Neither the Scamander of Homer, the Tiber of Virgil, nor the Aufidus of Horace, have received more lavishpraise than the Trent, NO. XIII. HOl^RS. 245 the Severn, and the Thames. With a view of the latter and its chief port, terminates the third book of the Fleece ; the poet, however, in tracing the progress of his manufacture through the country, in its way to the sea, has given a beautiful delineation of various smaller though equally romantic streams ; and the passage we are about to quote, especially in its close, will, with the judicious critic, possess merit of no inferior kind. After noticing the public roads along which the labours of the loom must pass, the author says, they . ; thence explore Thro' ev'ry navigable wave, the sea, That laps the green earth round : thro' Tyne, and Tees, Thro' Weare and Lime, and merchandising Hull, And Swale, and Aire, whose crystal waves reflect The various colours of the tinctur'd web ; Thro' Ken, swift rolling down his rocky dale, Like giddy youth impetuous, then at Wick Curbing his train, and, with the sober pace Of cautious eld, meand'ring to the deep ; Thro' Dart, and sullen Exe, whose murm'ring wave Envies the Dune and Rother, who have won The serge and kersey to their blanching streams ; Thro' Towy, winding under Merlin's tow'rs, And Usk, that frequent, among hoary rocks, R 3 246 LITERARY NO. XIII, On her deep waters paints th' impending scene, Wild torrents, craggs, and woods, and mountain snows. B. iii. The fourth book offers such a multiplicity of passages worthy of selection, that, were we not necessarily limited by the nature of our work, many sheets might be occupied in un- folding its beauties. The reader, however, must be contented with a few specimens, which are intended rather to allure him to the perusal of the entire poem, than to satisfy his curiosity. Sea-views make a conspicuous figure in the first-rate productions of some of the first poets ; the Odyssey and the iEneid abound with them, but the Lusiad of Camoens has, in this species of painting, far excelled the boasted efforts of antiquity. Its storms and calms are drawn with a spirit and precision which even Vandervelt has not exceeded. Among our- selves, the Shipwreck of Falconer may be mentioned with applause, and the lately pub- lished poem of Mr. Bidlake, intitled The Se'a y has claims to considerable notice. Dyer, also, in this part of his Fleece, has presented us with NO. XIII. HOURS. 247 some beautiful sea-pieces of the tranquil kind ; two of these demand quotation. t In pleasing care the pilot steers Steady ; with eye intent upon the steel, Steady, before the breeze, the pilot steers: While gaily o'er the waves the mountain prows Dance, like a shoal of dolphins, and begin To streak with various paths the hoary deep. — . and now The fluctuating world of waters wide, In boundless magnitude, around them swells ; O'er whose imaginary brim, nor towns, Nor woods, nor mountain tops, nor aught appears, But Phoebus 5 orb, refulgent lamp of light, Millions of leagues aloft : heav'n's azure vault Bends over head, majestic, to its base Uninterrupted, clear circumference 5 Till, rising o'er the flick'ring w r aves, the cape Of Finisterre, a cloudy spot, appears. B. iy. The turn upon the words, at the commence- ment of these lines, has a pleasing effect ; Mil- ton has frequently and judiciously made use of the same ornament, which, if it be not too ostentatiously employed, will ever delight. The latter part of the extract is an example of that calm sublimity which elevates and M 24-8 LITERARY NO. XIII, expands the mind without exciting the pas- sions, or occasioning the smallest tumult ot agitation. A portion of the following description has ever been considered as an admirable instance of the adaptation of the sound to the sense ; and though, in many cases, this beauty be perfectly imaginary, in the present, I think, it it will be allowed, as far as possible, to have been exemplified. See, through the fragrance of delicious airs, That breathe the smell of halms, how traffic shapes A winding voyage, by the loftv coast Of Sofala, thought Ophir, in whose hills Ev'n yet some portion of its ancient wealth Remains, and sparkles in the yellow sand Of its clear streams, though unregarded now ; Ophirs more rich are found. With easy course The vessels glide \ unless, their speed be stopped By dead calms, that oft lie on those smooth seas While cv*ry zephyr sleeps : then the shrouds drop ; The downy feather, Gn the cordage hung. Moves not; the flat sea shines like yellow go/d 9 Fus J d in the fire ; or like the marble floor Of some old temple wide. But where so wide In old or later time, its marble floor Did ever temple boast as this, which here NO. XIIT. HO TTRS. 249 Spreads its bright level many a league around ? At solemn distances its pillars rise, Sofala's blue rocks, Mozambic's palmy steeps, And lofty Madagascar's glittering shores. B. iv. The infamous slave-trade meets, as it justly deserves, the poet's reprobation. At a time when this indelible blot upon our species had not been rendered so conspicuous for its atrocity as lately it hath been, through the well-directed efforts of the good and wise, our amiable author viewed it with indignant abhorrence : surveying the coast of Guinea, he exclaims : - — ■ — 1 ! — The trade Along this barb'rous coast, in telling, wounds . The gen'rous heart, the sale of wretched slaves ; wickedness is blind ! Their sable chieftains may in future times Burst their frail bonds, and vengeance execute On cruel unrelenting pride of heart And av'rice. There are ills to come for crimes ! B. iv. No British Bard, however, on this subject, has equalled the nervous language of Dr. 2jO LITERARY NO. XIII. Darwin, who, in his Botanic Garden, in lines, which, for strength of imagery and energy of appeal, excite the warmest ad- miration, thus proclaims the miseries of vio- lated humanity : Hark ! heard ye not that piercing cry, Which shook the waves, and rent the sky !— E'en now, e'en now, on yonder Western shores Weeps pale Despair, and writhing Anguish roars : E'en now in Afric's groves with hideous yell Fierce Slavery stalks, and slips the dogs of hell ; From vale to vale the gathering cries rebound, And sable nations tremble at the sound ! — — — Ye Bands of Senators! whose suffrage sways Britannia's realms, whom either Ind obeys ; Who right the injur'd, and reward the brave, Stretch your strong arm, for ye have power to save ! Thron'd in the vaulted heart, his dread resort, Inexorable Conscience holds his court ; With still small voice the plots of Guilt alarms, Bares his mask'd brow, his lifted hand disarms ; But, wrapp'd in night with terrors all his own, He speaks in thunder, when the deed is done. Hear him, ye Senates ! hear this truth sublime, n He who allows Oppression, shares the Crime." * * Botanic Garden, p» 131. NO.XIII. HOURS. 251 To tyrants of every species, Dyer was a determined foe, and seizes every opportunity, not only of lashing these bratalisers of man- kind, but of praising the mild constitution and laws of his native country. Many diffusive instances of this patriotism might be selected : but the introduction of Britain at the close of the following quotation, when mentioning the ports of Surat, Goa, and Bombay, is so strik- ingly beautiful, and in so concise yet in so forcible a manner interests our feelings, that I give it the preference to more elaborate detail : But what avails, or many ports or few ? Where wild ambition frequent from his lair Starts up ; while fell revenge and famine lead To havoc, reckless of the tyrant's whip, Which clanks along the valleys : oft in vain The merchant seeks upon the strand, whom erst, Associated by trade, he deck'd and cloath'd ; la vain, whom rage or famine has devour'd, He seeks ; and with increas'd affection thinks On Britain. " B. iv. The route of the trading caravans from Petejrsburgh to Pekin next leads the poet through a vast variety of nations differing' 2£2 LITERARY NO. XIII. essentially in their manners, customs, and cli- mate, and he has happily availed himself of these particulars, in many a sketch of animate and inanimate nature. On their leaving on the right the flowery realms bordering on the Caspian Lake, he recollects, with sorrow, they are The haunt Of arbitrary rule, where regions wide Are destin'd to the sword ; and on each hand Roads hung with carcases, or under foot Thick strewn ; while in their rough bewildered va!es % The blooming rose its fragrance breathes in vain y And silver fountains fall, and nightingales Attune their notes where none are left to hear. B. iv. The tenderly-pleasing thought in these last four lines, has been a great favourite with our poets : thus Pope : 1 Like roses that in deserts bloom and die. Rape of the Lock, iv. 157. A similar idea is met with in Thomson and Gray : ~~ — realms unknown, and blooming wilds, And fruitful deserts, worlds of solitude, mo. xi it- hours. 253 Where the sun smiles, and seasons teem in vain, Unseen and unenjoyed. Summer, 847* Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Elegy, v. 55. Dyer's description is, after all, perhaps, the most full and pathetic. In passing through the territory of theOstiac Tartars, a people immersed in the most savage barbarism, and indolent to an extreme, the author expatiates on their wretched state. _ Miserable tribe Void of commercial comforts : who, nor corn, Nor pulse, nor oil, nor heart-enliv'ning w 7 ine, Know to procure ; nor spade, nor scythe, nor share, Nor social aid : beneath their thorny bed The serpent hisses, while in thickets nigh Loud howls the hungry wolf. B. iv. After this bold and animated passage, he immediately proceeds to mark the further pro- gress of the caravans, and presents us with a piece of scenery whose chief features are those of mingled terror and sublimity. 254 LITERACY NO. XIIT# — ; So on they fare, And pass by spacious lake*, begirt with rocks And azure mountains ; and the heights admire Of white Imaus, whose snow-nodding craggs Frighten the realms beneath, and from their urns Pour mighty rivers down, uY impetuous streams Of Oby, and Irtis, and Jenisca swift, Which rush upon the northern pole, upheave Its frozen seas, and lift their hills of ice. B.iv. Were it necessary, many more quotations of equal beauty with the preceding might be given, for I may justly say, there is scarce a page in the whole poem, but what conveys, directly, or indirectly, some interesting senti- ment, or illustrative imagery; even in the most didactic parts, the close of a paragraph generally introduces a picture which rivets attention, and throws such a glow of animation over the precept, that he must be fastidious indeed, who is not delighted with the poet's art. Two or three of these miniature sketchings, as furnish- ing a strong idea of the author's mode of embellishing the dryest portions of his subject, I shall now transcribe. Treating of the diffe- rent value of the fleeces, he mentions those which have been injured by the molh r and observes ; NO. XIII. HOURS. 255 ^ . -Our ancestors Selected such for hospitable beds To rest the stranger, or the gory chief, From battle or the chase of wolves return'd. B. & The cotton groves of India, he remarks, produce mere luxuries, mere " gauds and dresses of fantastic web ; M — — but our kinder toils Give clothing to necessity ; keep warm Th' unhappy wand'rer, on the mountain wild Benighted, while the tempest beats around. B. in. He advises the merchant to neglect not even trifles, for that from highly-finished labour, they are frequently held in great estimation ; Nor what the peasant, near some lucid wave, Pactolus, Simois, or Meander slow, Renown'd in story, with his plow upturns, Neglect; the hoary medal, and the vase, Statue and bust, of old magnificence Beautiful reliques ! ■ ■ B. iv. Inculcating the necessity of varying the merchandise according to the varied modes 2$& LITERARY KO. Xllio and wants of mankind, he enforces his precept with this among other instances : Nor frequent are the freights of snow-white woofe. Since Rome, no more the mistress of the world, Varies her garb, and treads her darken'd streets With gloomy cowl, majestical'iio more. JB;iv; Such is the poem. which the tasteless criti- cism of Dr. Johnson has contributed to plunge into neglect. The exquisite specimens however, which we have now brought forward, will> it is to be hoped, induce many readers of the Literary Hours, to pay due attention to -the -volume of Dyer; they will find it written -in a true classical style, and with several happy imita- tions of the ancients. But let it be recollected that the beautiful and elaborate .effusions of genius, pregnant with classical and historical allusion, and chastised by retired taste, are not to be understood, or relished from a superficial perusal. To form an estimate of excellencies such as these, reiterated efforts, and no small portion of poetical erudition will be found 9 NO. XIII. HOURS. 257 essential ; an enjoyment, however, of the highest rank awaits him who studiously ele- vates his mind to a perception of the noblest energies of imagination, and to a keen sense of the finer beauties of composition. From such, the Fleece of Dyer, having once obtained attention, will receive its long- delayed reward, nor, though mingled, like every human work, with occasional error, has it much to apprehend from the most acute yet candid critic. Vol, I, S NUMBER XIV. — The time When Superstition cherish'd every crime ; When "barb'rous" Priests pronounc'd with falt'ring tongue, Nor knew to read the jargon which they sung ; When Nobles, train'd. like blood-hounds to destroy, In ruthless rapine plac'd their savage joy; And Monarchs wanted ev'n the skill to frame The letters that compos'd their mighty name. Hayley. During theeighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, while on the banks of the Thames, the Tiber, and the Seine, a profound and almost impene- trable darkness hovered, those of the Tigris were lighted up by the splendour of science and of literature. To contrast and to describe the leading features of these periods, the super- stitious ignorance of Christian Europe with ±66 t ITER ART *tf « the literary energy and magnificence of thd eastern world, will, perhaps, afford no unenter* taining sketch* nor one unproductive of salu- tary reflection. Upon the demolition of the western empire in the sixth century of the Christian era, its rude and untutored conquerors^ hurrying over the most fertile parts of Europe* ignorant of letters, and altogether 4 addicted to the love and exercise of arms, soon utterly neglected what- ever remained of the taste, of the literature, and elegance of the Roman ; and, to cut off all resource, all speedy probability of dispelling so dreadful a gloom* the Arabians, in the course of a few years after this event, headed by the daring and enthusiastic Mahomet, rushed from their savage deserts to enforce the precepts of his religion, and, under his imme- diate successors, rashly dared io consume the invaluable library of Alexandria, the rich de-* posit of whatever the best and wisest of the ancient world had been amassing for ages. Thus, within the space of a hundred years, every vestige of human learning was nearly destroyed, and a barbaric ignorance, which $ 310. XIV. HOURS, z6t attained its height during the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, degraded Europe. In these latter periods, with one exception or two, every species of tyranny which could deform humanity, and every superstition which could debase the light of human reason, universally prevailed, and from Christianity mingled with barbarism, the rights of the priesthood with those of the empire, the prerogative of the sovereign with that of the nobility, such anar-» chy and confusion arose, as altogether impeded the diffusion of letters. Among the clergy also, where literature more especially ought to have been cherished, an ignorance the most exces- sive was to be found ; and it is not uncommon to discover in the deeds of a synod, a sentence like the following : " As my lord the bishop cannot write himself, at his request I have subscribed/ 1 Even Charlemagne, that far- famed monarch, the theme of minstrels, and the hero of romance, was unable to write his own name, and forty-five years of his life elapsed, ere he attempted, any progress iu literature. What materially contributed to quench the last glimmerings of philosophy and science, was s 3 262 LITERARY NO. XIV. the extreme scarcity of books: in this island, what libraries had been left by the Romans, were destroyed by the ravages of the Picts and Saxons ; and the search for and the purchase of them upon the cont inent, were attended with great fatigue and enormous expence. In the year 690, king Alfred gave an estate of eight hides, or as much land as eight ploughs could labour, to Benedict Biscop, founder of the monastery of Weremonth in Northumberland, for a single volume on Cosmography,* and at Rome their value was equally extravagant. f In France, likewise, Louis the eleventh was obliged to deposit a considerable quantity of plate, and to get one of his nobility to join with him in a bond, under a high penalty, to restore it, before he could procure the loan of one volume, which may now be purchased for a few sinkings. ;j; Independent, however, of the d-.fticulty in acquiring manuscripts, not the least desire or inclination for study prevailed in these unhappy periods. In the ancient capitoi of the world itself, the lamp of science * Bed. Hist. Abbat Werrnuthen. p. 297, 8. + Mi : rator. Antiq. torn. 3, p. 811. J Hist, cle Louis xi. par Ccmincs, t. 4, p. 281. NO. XIV. HOURS. 263 was expiring, and the plainest rules of gram- mar, the first rudiments of letters, even among those who pretended to extraordinary informa- tion, were unknown. The vilest wretches that ever disgraced humanity, filled the papal throne during the tenth century, alike ignorant of literature as of moral rectitude. " O miserable Rome ! " exclaims a contemporary writer, €C thou that formerly didst hold out so many great and glorious luminaries to our ancestors, into what prodigious darkness art thou now fallen, which will render thee infamous to all succeeding ages !" * In France, in the eighth century, Charlemagne could not find a single teacher of the liberal arts : nor did she improve, in this respect during the two succeeding ages: and in Christian Spain they were compelled to issue canons against ordaining men priests or bishops, who could neither read, nor sing psalms. Three or four beautiful lights, how- ever, in this gloomy and dark-shaded picture should not be omitted ; Bede, Alcuinj and Charlemagne in the eighth, and Alfred in the ninth century, were possessed of extraordinary • Arnoldus Orleancnsis, apud Du Pin, Hist, Eccles. cent, xo» S4 264 LITERARY HO. XIV. genius ; men whom history has delighted to hold up to our admiration, whom it has em- balmed with grateful praise, and whose abilities, as brilliant as they were solid, burst through that cloud of ignorance with a splendour that dazzled, though they failed to inform, the understandings of their contemporaries. They were, in fact, but as meteors that flash on the surrounding gloom, are gazed at for a moment with stupid wonder, and are then lost in the darkness of returning night. " The death of Beda," says William of Malmesbury, " was fatal to learning, and particularly to history ; insomuch that it may be said, that almost all knowledge of past events was buried in the same grave with him, and hath continued in that condition even to our times/ 9 # "At my accession to the throne" (A. D. 871), observes Alfred, was the salu- tary and eternal truth imprinted by Moham- med on the minds of the rudest Idolaters, and prayer, fasting, and alms, were the duties he enjoined ; the simplicity of his doctrine and pfecepts has never been corrupted* and in the splendid dome of St. Sophia, as in the humble tabernacle erected by the hands of the Prophet, the pure creed of Islam is preserved and pro- fessed inviolate. To the Son of Abdallah, the Arabs were indebted for an union of action and sentiment, of which they had no concep- tion in any age previous to his existence ; their idols, the causes of religious difference, always the most implacable, " were broken before the throne of God," and a system of rewards and punishments admirably adapted to their igno- rance and appetites, stimulated the enthu- siasm and inflamed the imagination of these lords of the desert. Their valour was now solely directed against the unbelievers, and the sword of the Prophet, resistless as his tenets of ^D. XV. HOURS. 289 fate and predestination, flashed terror to the hearts of his opponents ; " a drop of blood," says the martial apostle, " shed in the cause of God, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting or prayer: who- ever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven ; at the day of judgment his wounds shall be resplen- dent as vermilion and odoriferous as musk ; and the loss of his limbs shall be supplied by the wings of angels and cherubim." Fired by re- presentations such as these, and by the powerful temptations of a sensual paradise, the roving tribes of Arabia awakened from their inglori- ous and solitary independence, coalesced, and with the view of extirpating polytheism, con- quered half the globe. Greatly however as the Koran owes its extension to the power of the sword, it can boast of a morality very pure; the mild virtues of hospitality and charity are inculcated as indispensable duties, and its doctrines of the unity and perfections of the deity, and of a resurrection to immortal life, are at once rational and sublime, The Musulman who wishes to be respectable* must fulfil the law of bestowing a tenth of his pro- perty, and, by strict temperance and ffequent ablution, prepare his soul and body in con- Vol, I. U ^9° LITERARY NO. XV. formity to the commands of God and his- apostle; and though the idea of a carnal para- dise has called forth the indignation of the Ascetic, yet has the Prophet expressly declared that all meaner happiness of this kind will be abjured and despised by those holy metl who shall be admitted to the beatitude of the divine vision. Let us consider moreover, that from the rational faith and practice of Islam, all worship of saints, martyrs, relics and images* all mystery and metaphysical subtlety, all mo- nastic seclusion, and enthusiastic penance, were banished,, and that it superseded the idolatrous worship of the Caaba, the rites of Sabianism, and the altars of Zoroaster. After these cursory remarks on the religion of Mohammed, I shall proceed to the more immediate purposes of this paper, and give a short account of the magnificence and man- ners, literature and science of the Caiiphats of Bagdad and Cordova, during the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, a period in which Christian Europe, as we have seen, was immersed in the profoundest ignorance and superstition. — Upon the expulsion of the Ommiades, Airnan- sor, the second Caliph of the race of Abbas,. 2 INK xv. hours. 19 1 not willing to reside at Damascus, the former capitol of the house of Ommiah, laid the foundations of Bagdad A* D. 762, the seat of his posterity during a reign of five hundred years* Nearly about the same time A. D. 755, Abdalrahman, a royal youth of the race of the Ommiades, escaping from the proscrip- tion of his kindred* took refuge in Spain, was received with triumph by the people of Anda- lusia, and after a glorious struggle* planted the throne of Cordova, and gave origin to the Ommiades of Spain, under whose prosperous sway this country attained a population and fertility which has not since been equalled. Bagdad was built on the eastern bank of the Tigris* and its population during the ninth century was so great that the funeral of a popular saint might be attended by eight hundred thousand men and sixty thousand wo- men of Bagdad and the neighbouring villages. Here* amid the luxuries of the east, the once temperate and simple Caliphs of Arabia, as- pired to rival and to surpass the magnificence of the Persian Kings. The treasure left by Almansor* amounting to thirty millions ster- ling, was in a few years exhausted by the rnu- v % igi LITERARY NO. XV. nificence and ostentation of his children, and his son Mahadi,in a singlepilgrimage to Mecca, expended six millions of dinars of gold. " A pious and charitable motive/' observes the Historian of the Roman Empire, may sanc- tify the foundation of cisterns and caravan- seras, which he distributed along a measured road of seven hundred miles ; but his train of camels, laden with snow, could serve only to astonish the natives of Arabia, and to refresh the fruits and liquors of the royal banquet. The courtiers would surely praise the liberality of his grandson Almamon, who gave away four fifths of the income of a province, a sum of two millions four hundred thousand gold di- nars, before he drew his foot from the stirrup. At the nuptials of the same prince, a thousand pearls of the largest size were showered on the head of the bride, and a lottery of lands and houses displayed the capricious bounty of fortune."* In the tenth century the magnifi- cence and glories of the court had increased, while the vital strength and power of the Ca^ liphat were gradually diminishing. A.D. 917, * Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. x« NO. XV. HOURS. 293 an embassy was received at Bagdad from the Greek Emperor of Constantinople, " and the Caliph's whole army/' says Abulfeda, " both horse and foot, was under arms, which together made a body of one hundred and sixty thou- sand men. His state-officers, the favorite slaves, stood near him in splendid apparel, their belts glittering with gold and gems. Near them were seven thousand eunuchs, four thousand of them white, the remainder black. The porters or doorkeepers were in number seven hundred. Barges and boats, with the most superb decorations, were seen swimming on the Tigris. Nor was the place itself less splendid, in which were hung up thirty-eight thousand pieces of tapestry, twelve thousand five hun- dred of which were of silk embroidered with gold. The carpets on the fio)r were twenty- two thousand. An hundred lions were brought out, with a keeper to each lion. Among the other spectacles of rare and stupendous luxury, was a tree of gold and silver spreading into eighteen large branches, on which, and on the lesser boughs, sat a variety of birds made of the same precious metals, as well as the leaves of the tree. While the machinery affected spontaneous motions, the several birds warbled v 3 294 LITERARY NO. XV, their natural harmony. Through this scene of magnificence, the Greek ambassador was led by the visit to the foot of the caliph's throne." * Nor was the splendour of the Ommiades of Spain at all inferior to the Abbassides of Bagdad ; in the same period, that Caliphat produced a revenue of six millions of sterling money, a sum which in the tenth century ex- ceeded the combined revenues of the Christian monarchs. Cordova displayed six hundred moschs, nine hundred baths, and two hundred thousand houses ; and the caliph gave laws to eighty cities of the first, and to three hundred of the second and third order; and twelve thou- sand villages and hamlets decorated the beauti- ful banks of the Guadalquivir. " Three miles from Cordova, in honour of his favourite Sultana, the third and greatest of the Abdal- rahmans constructed the city, palace, and gardens of Zehrar. Twenty-five years, and above three millions sterling, were employed by the founder \ his liberal taste invited the most skilful sculptors and architects of the age j * Abulfeda, p. 237. 2JN0L XV, HOUR S. 295 and the buildings were sustained or adorned by twelve hundred columns of Spanish and African, of Greek and Italian marble. The hall of audience was encrusted with gold and pearls, and a great bason, in the centre, was. surrounded with the curious and costly figures of birds and quadrupeds. In a lofty pavilion of the gardens, one of these basons and foun- tains, so delightful in a sultry climate, was replenished, not with water, but with the purest quicksilver. The seraglio of Abdalrabman, his wives, concubines, and black eunuch%, amounted to six thousand three hundred per- sons ; and he was attended to the field by a guard of twelve thousand horse, whose belts and scymetars were studded with gold." — — f € Our imagination is dazzled by the splendid picture," continues the philosophic historian, "and whatever may be the cool dictates of reason, there are few among us who would obstinately refuse a trial of the comforts and the cares of royalty. It may, therefore, be of some use to borrow the experience of the same Abdalrabman, whose magnificence has, per- haps, excited our admiration and envy, and to transcribe an authentic memorial which was found in the closet of the deceased caliph." s I u 4 1^6 LITERARY NO. ^V, have now reigned above fifty years in victory or peace ; beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honours, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation, I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot : they amount to Four- teen ; — O man ! place not thy confidence in, this present world. 5 * In the most flourishing period of the Abas- side dynasty, toward the latter end of the eighth, and beginning of the ninth century, reigned the Caliph Haroun Alrashid, or the Just, a name familiar even to our infancy through the medium of the Arabian Tales, Haroun was the most potent monarch of his race, a lover of learning, art, and science, a war- rior of the first fame, and indefatigable in the administration of the laws ; he repeatedly tra- velled through his provinces from Chorasan to iEgypt; nine times he performed the pilgrim- age of Mecca, and eight times he invaded the * Gibbon, vol, x. p. 38, 39, 40* K0. XV. HOURS. 297 dominions of Constantinople. His father Ma- hadi had compelled the Greeks to pay an an- nual tribute of seventy thousand dinars of gold, but upon his death, the Emperor Nicephorus resolving not to pay what his predecessors had so ingloriously submitted to, sent an epistle to Alrashid refusing this badge of disgrace, and terminating with the following menace : ' Re- store therefore the fruits of your injustice, or abide the determination ol me sword.' " At these words the ambassadors cast a bundle of swords before the foot of the throne*,. The ca- liph smiled at the menace, and drawing his scymetar, samsamah, cut asunder the feeble arms of the Greeks, without turning the edge, or endangering the temper of his blade. He then dictated an epistle of tremendous bre- vity : c In the name of the most merciful God, Haroun Alrashid, commander of the faithful, to Nicephorus, the Roman Dog. I have read thy letter, O thou son of an unbelieving mother. Thou shalt not hear, thou shalt behold my re- ply.' It was written in characters of blood and fire on the plains of Phrygia," * and Nicephorus was ultimately compelled to sub- mit. # Gibbon, vol x. p. 54. £<)8 LITERARY NO. XV. fThc epithet of the just applied to this caliph was not undeservedly bestowed ; he was atten- tive and impartial as a legislator, and in his domestic character he was mild and generous. One exception, however, there is to this ap- plause, which has sullied the brightness of his tame, and covered his memory with reproach. He who could listen to the complaint of a poor widow, who had been pillaged by his troops, and who dared, in a passage of the Koran, to threaten him with the judgment of God and posterity, instigated by ill-founded passion, and intemperate revenge, slaughtered the innocent Barmecides, the most illustrious family of the east. As the relation of this transaction will throw some light on the man- ners of the period, its insertion here will not be inapposite. Yahi Ben Khaled, the first of this family who distinguished himself at Bag- dad, and his four sons, Fadhel, Jaafer, Moham- med, and Mus'a, were endowed with all the virtues and talents that elevate and adorn hu- manity, were possessed of large property and influence, and beloved both by prince and peo- ple. Yahia had been preceptor to Haroun, and upon his accession to the throne, was appointed his visir, and when the infirmities of age com- £T0. XV, HOURS, e£g pelied him to retire, his son Jaafer succeeded to that high office. The most eloquent and pleasing character of his age, Jaafer became the inseparable companion of the caliph, nor could existence charm without the presence of the son of Yahia. The affairs of government, however, necessarily withheld him from the wishes of the caliph, who, to enjoy therefore the entire society of a man so deservedly esteemed, deprived him of his office, and ere- ated Fadhel grand visir in his room. In these situations the two brothers for seventeen years swayed the empire and the affections of their master, until a moment of imprudence plunged them in the gulf of irretrievable ruin. The ac- count of their disgrace is thus given : " The caliph had a sister called Abassa, of whom he was passionately fond, and whose company he preferred to every thing but the conversation of Jaafer. " These two pleasures he would fain have joined together, by carrying Jaafer with him in his visits to Abassa, but the laws of the Haram, which forbad any one, except a near relation, being introduced there, made that 300 LITERARY NO. XV. impossible, and he was obliged to be absent either from his sister or his favourite. At length he discovered a method which he hoped would enable him to enjoy at the same time the society of these two persons, who were so dear to him. This was to unite Jaafer and Abassa in marriage. They were married ac- cordingly; but with this express condition, that they should never meet, except in the presence of the caliph.. r zvQocXsg hAov awQovy T$-sgov ocv £wot7*, x&i sig z\o; uWo (pvovli* AjAjAiq and which is introduced by Dr. Percy into his Retimes of Ancient English Poetry. Had Spenser attended more to the unaffected ease and natural expression of this fine old pastoral, he would not, I presume, have interwoven theology With his eclogues, nor chosen such a * This observation is only applicable to the lines here quoted, for the concluding stanzas of this exquisite poem completely remove the cloud which hung over the prospects of the grecian poet, and present to the reader the christian doctrine of a re- mrrection. no. xv«i. hours, 335 barbarous and vulgar jargon to convey the sentiments of his shepherds in. Few poets exceed Spenser in the brilliancy of his ima- gination, and there is a tender melancholy in his compositions which endears him to the reader : but elegant simplicity, so necessary in Bucolic poetry, was no characteristic of the author of the Fairy Queen. In every requisite for this province of his divine art, he has been much excelled by Drayton, whose Nymphidia may be considered as one of the best speci- mens we have of the pastoral eclogue. The present age seems to have forgotten this once popular poet ; an edition indeed has been pu- blished of his Heroical Epistles, but various other portions of his works, and more espe- cially his Nymphidia, merit republication. After the example of Tasso and Guarlni, whose Aminta and Pastor Fido were highly distinguished in the literary world, Fletcher wrote his Faithful Shepherdess, a piece that rivals, and, perhaps, excels the boasted pro- ductions of the Italian muse. Equally pos- sessing the elegant simplicity which charac- terises the Aminta, it has at the same time a richer vein of wild and romantic imagery, and LITEkARY NO. XVTi disdains those affected prettinesses which de- form the drama of Guarini. This Arcadian Comedy of Fletcher's was held in high esti- mation by Milton; its frequent allusion, and with the finest effect, to the popular supersti- tions, caught the congenial spirit of our enthus- iastic bard. The Sad Shepherd of Jonson likewise* Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, and Vv ' arker's Albion' s England,may be mentioned as containing much pastoral description of the most genuine kind. Of the singular produc- tion of Warner, there is, I believe, no modern edition, yet few among our elder poets more deserve the attention of the lover of nature and rural simplicity. Some well chosen extracts from this work aire to be found in the collec* tions of Percy and Headley, and his Argentile mid Cur an has been the mean of enriching our language with an admirable drama from the pen of Mason. Scott, too, in describing his favourite village of Amwell, " where sleeps our bard by Fame forgotten," has offered a due tribute to his memory. Numerous passages, estimable for their simple and pathetic beauty, might be quoted from his volume; the follow- ing will convince the reader, that harmony of versification also, and a terseness and felicity of diction are among his excellences : ■no. XVI. HOUR S. She casting down her bashful eyes Stood senseless then a space, Yet what her tongueless love adjourned Was extant in her face. With that she dasht her on the lips, So dyed double red : Hard was the heart that gave the blow, Soft were those lips that bled. When in the holy4and I pray'd, Even at the holy grave, Forgive me, God ! a sigh for sin, And three for love I gave. Each spear that shall but cross thy helmc, Hath force to erase my heart : But if thou bleed, of that thy blood My fainting soul hath part, With thee I live, with thee I die, With thee I lose or gain. Methinks I see how churlish looks Estrange thy cheerful face, Methinks thy gestures, talk, and gait, Have chang'd their wonted grace i Vol. & Z 33^ LITERARY NO. XVX. Methinks thy sometimes nimble limbs With armour now are lame: Methinks I see how scars deform Where swcrds before did maim : I see thee faint with summer's heat, And droop with winter's cold. Albion's England. That pleasing little poem, The Fishermen of Theocritus, probably first suggested to Sanna- zarius the idea of writing piscatory eclogues, who has been followed with much success by Phineas Fletcher and Brown. Whatever-may be thought of the employment, as suited to the eclogue^ of those who live on the sea-shore, and subsist, by catching the produce of the deep, it will readily be allowed that our rivers at least fertilise the most rich and romantic parts of our island, and that they display to the fisher lingering upon their banks the most lovely scenery, such as, mingling with the circumstances of his amusement, and the detail of appropriate incident, would furnish very delightful pictures, and in the genuine style of Bucolic poetry. Fletcher and Brown have in this* manner rendered their eclogues truly in- teresting, and even Isaac Walton, though no poet, has in his. Complete Angler introduced NO. XVI, hours. 339 some inimitably drawn pastoral scenes : what can be more exquisite than the following description ?— "Turn out of the way a little, good scholar, towards yonder high honey-suckle hedge; there we '11 sit and sing, whilst this shower falls so gently upon the teeming earth, and gives yet a sweeter smell to the lovely flowers that adorn these verdant meadows. Look, under the broad beech tree, I sat down, when I was last this way a fishing, and the birds in the adjoin- ing grove seemed to have a friendly contention with an echo, whose dead voice seemed to live in a hollow tree, near to the brow of that primrose hill ; there I sat viewing the silver streams glide silently towards their centre, the tempestuous sea ; yet sometimes opposed by rugged roots and pebble stones, which broke their waves and turned them into foam : and sometimes I beguiled time, by viewing the harmless lambs, some leaping securely in the cool shade, whilst others sported themselves in the cheerful sun ; and saw others craving com- fort from the swollen udders of their bleating dams. As I thus sat, these and other sights had so fully possessed my soul with content, that z z 34° lITERARY NO. XVI. I thought, as the poet has happily expressed it, I was for that time lifted above earth. " As I left this place and entered into the next field, a second pleasure entertained me $ 'twas a handsome milk-maid, that had not yet attained so much age and wisdom as to load her mind with any fears of many things that will never be, as too many men too often do ; but she cast away all care, and sang like a nightingale. "* In the pastoral song and ballad, the moderns, and particularly the Scotch and English, have greatly excelled ; Howe's Despairing Shepherd is the sweetest poem of the kind we have in England, and Shenstone's ballad in four parts, though not equal in merit to the former, has , yet long and deservedly been a favourite with the public. In artless expression of passion, however, in truth of colouring, and naivete of diction, nothing can rival the Scotch pastoral songs; they originated in a country abounding in a rich assemblage of rural images ; * c smooth and lofty hills," says Dr. Beattie, speaking of * Walton's Complete Angler, ist Edition, by Sir John Hawkins, p. 73. NO. XVI. HOURS. 34I the southern provinces of Scotland, " covered with verdure $ clear streams winding through long and beautiful valleys ; trees produced without culture, here straggling or single, and there crowding into little groves and bowers 5 — with other circumstances peculiar to the dis- tricts I allude to, render them fit for pasturage, and favourable to romantic leisure and tender passions. Several of the old Scotch songs take their names from the rivulets, villages, and hills, adjoining to the Tweed near Mel- rose ; a region distinguished by many charming varieties of rural scenery, and which, whether we consider the face of the country, or the genius of the people, may- properly enough be termed the Arcadia of Scotland. And all these songs are sweetly and powerfully expres- sive of love and tenderness, and other emotions suited to the tranquillity of pastoral life."* Robene and Makyn, Ettric Banks, Eubuchts Marion, and several other Scotch pieces, are striking proofs of the Doctor's assertion. To rouse the imagination by the charms of novelty, several of our poets have transferred * Beattie on Poetry and Music, p. 173. Z3 LITERARY NO. XVI, the eclogue to the valleys of Persia, and the deserts of Arabia, to breathe the odours of Yemen, or revel 'mid the groves of Circassia. The life of the wandering Arab abounds with events which strike the fancy, and when clothed in the metaphorical and exuberant language of the east, cannot fail to interest our curiosity and excite our feelings. Their independence, hospitality, and love of poetry, are beautiful features of their character, and form a strong contrast with the more luxurious and servile existence of the Persian. In Arabia itself, nothing can be more opposed than the two districts which are known by the epithets of Petrea and Felix ; a dreary and boundless waste of sand, without shade, shelter, or water, scorched by the burning rays of the sun, and intercepted by sharp and naked mountains, which instead of refreshing breezes, breathe the most deadly vapours and whirlwinds, and while raising the sandy ocean threaten to over- whelm the affrighted caravan, are descriptive of the one part ; while shady groves, green pastures, streams of pure water, fruits of the most delicious flavour, and air of the most balmy fragrance, characterise the other. From the banks of the Tigris, from the deserts of no. xvi. hours. 343 Arabia, from the shaded plains of Georgia and Circassia, has our inimitable Collins drawn his scenery and characters, and no eclogues of ancient or modern times, in pathetic beauty, in richness and wildness of description, in sim- plicity of sentiment and manners, can justly be esteemed superior. His Hassan, or the Camel ^Driver, is, I verily believe, one of the most tenderly sublime, most sweetly-descrip- tive poems in the cabinet of the Muses. The Solyman of Sir William Jones, and the Oriental Eclogues of Scott of Amweil, have also considerable merit ; the former is an ex- quisite specimen of the Arabian eclogue, and the Serim and Li-Po of the latter have many picturesque touches, and much pleasing, moral A poet of fine imagination, and great pathe- tic powers, has lately presented us with Botany- May Eclogues, a subject fruitful in novelty both of scenery and character; nor has he failed strongly to interest our feelings. In Elinor, the first of his four eclogues, he has more particularly availed himself of the pecu- liar features of the country ; the following passage vividly paints the state of this yet savage land. z 4 344 LITERARY NO. XVI. Welcome, ye marshy heaths ! ye pathless woods, Where the rude native rests his wearied frame Beneath the sheltering shade; where, wiien the storm, As rough arid bleak it rolls along the sky, Benumbs his naked limbs, he flies to seek The dripping shelter. Welcome, ye wild plains Unbroken by the plough, undeivM by hand Of patient rustic ; where for lowing herds, And for the music of the bleating flocks, Alone is heard the kangaroo's sad note Deepening in distance. SoUTHEY. Mrs. West too, in imitation of the pastoral ballad of Rowe and S hens tone, has given us some elegant productions ; one, in which the superstition and imagery of the Scottish Highlands are introduced, has the merit of originality. If what has been now observed, should induce the unprejudiced reader to reperuse the authors alluded to, he will probably be inclined to admit that, in pastoral poetry, Virgil, Spenser, Pope, Gay, and Phillips, must yield the palm to Tasso, Warner, Drayton* HO. XVI. HOURS. 345 and the two Fletchers, to Rowe, Ramsay,* Shenstone, Gesner, and Collins : yet most of our critics in this department have considered the former as the only genuine disciples of Theocritus, and have scarce deigned to mention any of the latter. Some indeed have noticed the Italians and the courtly Fontenelle, but none, except Blair, though treating professedly upon this subject, have applauded Gesner; and as to Warner and Drayton, save a few obser- vations with regard to the latter from the elegant pen of Dr. Aikin, they have almost suffered oblivion. Virgil, excluding his first Bucolic, is a mere, though a very pleasing, imitator ; and whatever may be thought of Spenser, Pope has certainly nothing but his musical versification to recommend him. The purport of Gay seems to have been parody and burlesque, and Phillips, and I may here also add Lyttleton, though superior perhaps to Pope, have little or no originality. It is no wonder, therefore, that modern pastoral poetry should appear so despicable, contrasted with the ancient, when our best and most original * Though I have not previously mentioned the name of Ramsay, I consider his Gentle Shepherd as included under the remarks made on Scottish Pastoral Poetry. 346 LITERARY NO. XVI. writers are unappealed to ; when to quote Pope, Gay, and Phillips, Warner, Drayton, Collins, and Gesner are neglected. These four authors assuredly rescue modern pastoral and eclogue from the charge of insipidity. Not servilely treading in the footsteps of Theocritus and Virgil, they have chalked out and embellished with the most beautiful simplicity, paths of their own ; their flowers are congenial to the soil, and display their tints with a brilliancy and fragrance which no sickly exotic can ever hope to emulate.* To this remark, the oriental eclogue may be opposed, but let it be observed that the manners still exist, and have all the freshness of living nature; the shepherds of Arabia are what they were a thousand years * Br, Aikin, In his Essay on Ballads and Pastoral Songs, lias mentioned the pastorals of a Mr. Smith : these, as I have had no opportunity of perusing them, I must of course be silent with regard to ; but, in justice to perhaps a very ingenious poet, I think it necessary to transcribe the Doctor's opinion. " That there is still room for novelty in this walk," observes he, M has lately been agreeably shown in the pastorals of Mr. Smith, the landscape painter, which, however unequal and deficient in har- mony and correctness, have infinitely more merit than Fope's melodious echoes of an echo. Mr. Smith's pieces will also il- lustrate my former remark, that the manners and sentiments of our rural vulgar cannot be rendered pleasing subjects for poetry 5 for where he paints them most naturally, they are least agreeable." no. xvi. hours. 347 ago, and a well drawn picture of their pastoral customs and country must be highly relished by the lovers of simple and independent life. In Warner and Drayton, our own country manners, without exaggeration or much em- bellishment, are naturally and correctly given; and in Gesner, the domestic affections, flowing from the bosom of more refined sensibility, and very picturesque description, are clothed, in language of the utmost simplicity. In pursuit of the idea started in the com- mencement of this sketch, that simplicity in diction and sentiment, a proper choice of rural imagery, such incidents and circumstances as may even now occur in the country, together with interlocutors equally removed from vul- garity, or considerable refinement, are, in the present state of society in Europe, all that can be requisite for the composition of the pastoral, I have ventured to append to these strictures a small poem, which, though it may fall short of the precepts inculcated in the preceding essay, will yet, I trust, be tolerated by the reader, more especially when he shall recol- lect, that to lay down just critical rules, and \ 348 LITERARY NO. XVI. to carry those rules into execution frequently require very different powers, and that the latter is incomparably the most difficult task. NO. XVI. HOURS. 349 EDWIN AND ORLANDO, From scenes of wild variety, from where Quick-glancing winds the stream, the pine- . hung vale Along, from where the madd'ning waters leap From rock to rock, from woods of druid oak, From groves where Love and rural Bliss reside, O Gesner, deign to stray ! for sure in scenes Like these thy gentle spirit rests. Sweet Bard Of pastoral song ! on whom the Graces shed Their balmy dew, to whom they did impart Their magic lore, thee, tender swain ! ah thee The wild woods and each murm'ring stream, the hill, The dale, young Fancy's fair elysium, long Shall moan, and oft the pensive pilgrim haunt The turf that wraps thy clay. O, haste lov'd shade, O, hither wing thy airy flight, but grant One modest wreathe from thy unfading laurel, Then shall the strain for ever melt the heart, For ever vibrate on the ravish'd ear. Calm and still grey eve came on, and silence Girt the valley, save when the bird of night, 35° Literary no. xvi. Sung to the list'ning moon her sweet complaint, For, 'rhid the cloudless vault of heav n, full orb'd, Pale Cynthia shone ; in mellow lustre clad The straw-roof 'd cot, and tipt the quiv'ring leaf; Soft on the grass, th' expansive silver slept, And on the trembling streaqi her radiance Play'd, and many a fragrant iprite that dreams On flowr's the day, now stole the mbon-lov'd green Along, and danc'd upon the dewy ray. At this sequester'd and this lonely hour, When Melancholy loves to pause, and heave The plaintive sigh, or joys the dreary shade To haunt, or roam the wild, with folded arms, With pensive step and slow, two shepherds istray'd To where a thick-wrought grove embrown'd the lawn, Where, sweetly tinted by it's solemn gloom, And green with moss, a time-worn Abbey stood ; When sudden rush'd upon their wond'ring, view A female form, of beauty exquisite, NO. XVI. HOITRS. 35I In flowing robe array 'd of snowy white, That, round her folded by a purple zone, Just caught the passing breeze ; her hair un- bound, Of light-brown hue, hung mantling on her neck ; And in her arms she bore a smiling babe, On whose soft cheeks dropp'd tears of silent woe : In agony of soul, she clasp'd the child, And smil'd and wept by turns, — then wild exclaim'd ; " Where is my Love ? — Oh, he is dead, and gone — fC No one to shroud him from the rav'ning bird ! Then shriek'd aloud with visionary fear, And, starting, fled beneath the neighboring grove. Tell me, Orlando, then young Edwin cried, Oh, tell me why this tender lily droops Beneath a fate so cruel ? ORLANDO. O my friend ; There dwelt not on our plains a lovelier maid, 35* LITERARY NO. XVI, Or one of sweeter nature : modesty, Calm innocence, and mild simplicity, Spread their chaste colours o'er her spotless form : No care disturb 'd the dimple on her cheek ; But jocund health sprang lightly bounding on, With rapture moving to the note of joy; The boast of yon sad weeping cots ; the pride And support of an aged sire; sole suit And fav'rite of the gen'rous youth,with worth, With honour, and with warm affection blest. Alas! the spoiler came ; — he crush'd the flow'r, And laid it in the dust ! Mark yonder halls, Whose turrets rise above the circling wood; Their Lord can vaunt of Fortune's lib'ral smile,- Noble by birth, but of a soul as mean As yon vile worm that creeps in slime along : By subtile fraud and flatt'ry's soothing charms He caught poor Mary's unsuspecting heart, And villain as he was, and under plea Of holy rites, betray'd the heart he won, Left her the soul-tormenting pang to feel Of disappointed love, left her to prove Maternal care imbitter'd by remorse, To curse those charms that lur'd the spoiler's eye no. xvi. hours. 353 And broke a parent's heart : — since that sad hour She roams the fields, her infant in her arms, And oft will utter such wild strains of grief. Her base betrayer her continual theme, As those you 've lately heard — but hark, my , friend ! The gentle Mourner sings ; it is her voice Beneath the echoing arch ; oft 'mid the aisle Of yonder abbey* will she sit and pour Her love-lorn sorrows o'er the mossy tomb. EDWIN. Blest be the soul that touched so sweetly wild The tender note of woe ! Ah, Mourner dear ! Long as thou breath' st this Vital air, so long The ray of hope shall tint thy passing day, And wheA at length the wish'd-for hour shall come That giv'st thy sorrows to the mould'ring grave, Thou shalt not want the sympathetic tear, Nor yet the turf thy sprite delights to haunt, With all the fragrance of the blushing; spring Forget to bloom. Vol, I. A a 354 LITERARY NO. XVI. ORLANDO, Mark yon grass-grown cloister, Her lone, yet fav'rite walk ! here oft at noon^ At eve and dewy morn, with tearful eye She comes, to meditate past scenes of grief; And oft her fancy* full of horror, deems The dear deceiver dead, with all the sad And mournful circumstance of tragic woe. ED'WI N. Poor Mary ! fare thee well ! oft shall Edwin stray From yonder neighboring vale, oft gently try To dissipate thy cheerless gloom, and check Thy falling tear — till then, meek nature's child ! Till then, thou pilgrim mourner! fare thee welh NO. XVlt. hours. 355 NUMBER XVIL Spelunca alta fiiit, vastoque immanis hiatu, Scrupea, tuta lacu nigro nemorumque tenebrisj Quani super haud ullae poterant impune volantes Tendere iter pennis : talis sese halitus atris Faucibus efFundens supera ad convexa ferebat. Virgil, Objects of terror may with propriety be divided into those which owe their origin to the agency of superhuman beings, and form a part of every system of mythology, and into those which depend upon natural causes and events for their production. In the essay on gothic superstition, the former species has been noticed, and a tale presented to the reader, whose chief circumstances are brought about through the influence of preternatural power ^ on the latter we shall now deliver a few obser- vations, and terminate them with a fragment 356 LITERARY NO. XVI r. in which terror is attempted to be excited by the interference of simple material causation. Terror thus produced requires no small degree of skill and arrangement to prevents its operating more pain than pleasure. Unac- companied by those mysterious incidents which indicate the ministration of beings mightier far than we, and which induce that thrilling- sensation of mingled astonishment, apprehen- sion, and delight, so irresistibly captivating to the generality of mankind, it will be apt to create rather horror and disgust than the grate- ful emotion intended. To obviate this result, it is necessary either to interpose picturesque description, or sublime and pathetic senti- ment, or so to stimulate curiosity by the artful texture of the fable, or by the uncertain and suspended fate of an interesting personage, that the mind shall receive such a degree of artifi- cial pleasure as may mitigate and subdue what, if naked of decoration and skilful accompani- ment, wouki shock and appal every feeling heart. A poem, a novel, or a picture, may however,, notwithstanding its accurate imitation of na~ 1 no. xvii. hours. 357 ture and beauty of execution, unfold a scene so horrid, or so cruel, that the art of the painter or the poet is unable to render it com- municative of the smallest pleasurable emotion. He who could fix, for instance, upon the fol- lowing event as a fit subject for the canvas, was surely unacquainted with the chief purport of his art. " A robber, who had broken into a repository of the dead, in order to plunder a corse of some rich ornaments, is said to have been so affected with the hideous spectacle of mortality which presented itself when he opened the coffin, that he slunk away, trembling and weeping, without being able to execute his purpose. " " I have met/' says Dr. Beattie, " with an excellent print upon this subject ; but was never able to look at it for half a minute together."* In a collection of Scottish ballads, published by Mr. Pinkerton, there is one termed Edzvard, which displays a scene which no poet, however great his talents, could render tolerable to any person of sensibility. A young man, his sword still reeking with blood, rushes into the presence of his mo- ther, at whose suggestion he had the moment * Beattie on Poetry and Music, p. 115. 35§ LITERARY NO. XVII. before destroyed his father. A short dialogue ensues, which terminates by the son pouring upon this female fiend the curses of hell. * The Mysterious Mother also, a tragedy by the late celebrated Lord Orford, labours under an insuperable defect of this kind. The plot turns upon a mother's premeditated invest with her own son, a catastrophe productive only of horror and aversion, and for which the many well-written scenes introductory to this mon- strous event cannot atone. No efforts of genius, on the other hand, are so truly great as those which, approaching the brink of horror, have yet, by the art of the poet or painter, by adjunctive and picturesque embellishment, by pathetic or sublime emo- tion, been rendered powerful in creating the most delightful and fascinating sensations. Shakspeare, if we dismiss what is now gene- rally allowed not to be his, the wretched play of Titus Andronicus, has seldom, if ever, exceeded the bounds of salutary and grateful terror. Many strong instances of emotion of this kind, unmingled with the wild fictions of * Select Scottish Ballads^ vol. i. p. 80, NO. XVII. H O V R 3 . 359 superstition, yet productive of the highest interest, might, had we room for their inser- tion, be quoted from his drama, but perhaps the first specimen in the records of poetry is to be found in the works of an elder poet, in the Inferno of Dante. A whole family perishing from hunger in a gloomy dungeon, would appear to partake too much of the terrible for either poetry or painting, yet has Dante, by the introduction- of various pathetic touches, rendered such a description the most striking, original, and affecting scene perhaps in the- world, and Sir Joshua Reynolds, by his celebrated picture of Ugoiino, has shewn that, through the medium of exalted genius, it is equally adapted to the canvas. Michael Angelo too, an enthusiastic disciple of Dante, and possessing similar pow- ers, has likewise executed a Bas-Relief on the subject, As every lover of the sublime Italian must be grateful for the insertion, no apology can possibly be wanting for copying a portion of this admirable narrative, as it has been literally translated by Dr. Warton. Ugoiino is repre- A A 4 / 360 LITERARY NO, XVII, sented by the poet as detailing his own suffer- ings and those of his family. " The hour approached/' says he, " when we expected to have something brought us to eat. But in- stead of seeing any food appear, I heard the floors of that horrible dungeon more closely barred. i beheld my little children in silence v and could not weep. My heart was petrified ! The little wretches wept, and my dear Anselm said ; Father, you look on us ! what ails you ? I could neither weep nor answer, and continued swal- lowed up in silent agony all that clay, and the following night, even till the dawn of day t As soon as a glimmering ray darted through 1 he doleful prison, that I could view again ■hose four faces in which my own image zvas im- pressed, I gnawed both mv hands, with, grief and rage. My children believing I did this through eagerness to eat, raising themselves suddenly up, ^aid to me, My father ! our tor- ments would be less, if you zvould allay the rage of your hunger upon us. i restrained myself, that \ might not increase their misery. We were all mute thai day and the' following. The fourth day being come, Gaddo, falling "Xtcnded at my feet, cried, My fat her , why ipyou not help me? and died. The other three NO. XVI I. HOURS. 361 expired one after the other, between the fifth and sixth day, famished as thou seest me now ! And I, being seized with blindness, began to go groping upon them zvith my hands and feet : and continued calling them by their names three days after they were dead ; then hunger van- quished my grief ! ' 9 * In the productions of Mrs. RadclifFe, the Shakspeare of Romance Writers, and who to the wild landscape of Salvator Rosa has added the softer graces of a Claude, may be found many scenes truly terrific in their conception, yet so softened down, and the mind so much relieved, by the intermixture of beautiful description, or pathetic incident, that the im- pression of the whole never becomes too strong, never degenerates into horror, but pleasurable emotion is ever the predominating result. In her last piece, termed The Italian, the attempt of Schedoni to assassinate the amiable and in- nocent Ellena, whilst confined with banditti in a lone house on the sea-shore, is wrought up in so masterly a manner, that every nerve § Warton on the Genius and Writings of Pope, vol. 1. p. 264, 362 LITERARY NO. XVfl, vibrates with pity and terror, especially at the moment when, about to plunge a dagger into her bosom, he discovers her to be his daughter: every word, every action of the shocked and seif-accusing Confessor, whose character is marked with traits almost super-human, appal yet delight the reader, and it is difficult to ascertain whether ardent curiosity, intense commiseration, or apprehension that suspends almost the faculty of breathings be, in the progress of this well-written story, most power- fully excited. Smollet too, notwithstanding his peculiar propensity for burlesque and broad humour, has, in his Ferdinand Count Fathom, painted a scene of natural terror with astonishing effect ; with such vigour of imagination indeed, and minuteness of detail, that the blood runs cold, and the hair stands erect from the impression. The whole turns upon the Count, who is admitted, during a tremendous storm, into a solitary cottage in a forest, discovering a body just murdered in the room where he is going to sleep, and the door of which, on endeavour* fng to escape, he finds fastened upon him, NO, xvir. hours. 363 The sublime Collins likewise, in his lyric pieces, exhibits much admirable imagery, which forcibly calls forth the emotions of fear as arising from natural causes ; the concluding lines of the following description of Danger make the reader absolutely shudder, and pre- sent a picture at once true to nature and full ot originality. Danger, whose limbs of giant mold What mortal eye can fix'd behold ? Who stalks his round, an hideous form J Howling amidst the midnight storm, Or throws him on the ridgy steep Qf some loose hanging rock to sleep * The exquisite Scotch ballad of Hardybmte, so happily completed by Mr. Pinkerton, may be also mentioned as including several inci- dents, which, for genuine pathos, and for that species ' of terror now under consideration, cannot easily be surpassed. The close of the first and commencement of the second part $re particularly striking. * Ode to Fear, 364 LITERARY NO. XVII, In the fragment annexed to these observa- tions, it has been the aim of the author to combine picturesque description with some of those objects of terror which are independent of supernatural agency. NO. XVII. HOURS. 3% The sullen tolling of the Curfew was heard over the heath, and not a beam of light issued from the dreary villages, the murmuring Cotter had extinguished his enlivening embers, and had shrunk in gloomy sadness to repose, when Henry De Montmorency and his two attend- ants rushed from the castle of A y. The night "was wild and stormy,, and the wind howled in a fearful manner. The moon flashed, as the clouds passed from before her, on the silver armour of Montmorency, whose large and sable plume of feathers streamed threatening in the blast. They hurried rapidly on, and, arriving at the edge of a declivity, descended into a deep glen, the dreadful and savage appearance of which was sufficient to strike terror into the stoutest heart. It was .narrow, and the rocks on each side, rising to a prodigious height, hung bellying over their $66 LITERARY NO. XV t i i heads ; furiously along the bottom of the val- )ey, turbulent and dashing against huge frag- ments of the rock, ran a dark and swoln torrent, and farther up the glen, down a precipice of near ninety feet, and roaring with tremendous strength, fell, at a single stroke, an awful and immense cascade. From the clefts and chasms of the crag, abrupt and stern the venerable oak threw his broad breadth of shade* and bending his gigantic arms athwart the stream, shed, driven by the wind, a multitude of leaves, while from the summits of the rock was heard the clamour of the falling fragments, that bounding from its ragged side leapt with resistless fury on the vale beneath. Montmorency and his attendants, intrepid as they were, felt the inquietude of apprehension ; they stood for some time in silent astonishment, but their ideas of danger from the conflict of the elements being at length alarming, they determined to proceed 5 when all inftantly became dark, whilst the rushing of the storm y the roaring of the cascade, the shivering of the branches of the trees, and the dashing of the rock, assailed at once their sense of hearing. The moon, however, again darting from a 3 mO, XVII. HOURS, 367 cloud, they rode forward, and, following the course of the torrent, had advanced a consi- derable way, when the piercing shrieks of a person in distress arrested their speed ; they stopped, and listening attentively, heard shrill, melancholy cries repeated, at intervals, up the glen, which, gradually becoming more distant, grew faint, and died away. Montmorency, ever ready to relieve the oppressed, couched his lance, and bidding his followers prepare, was hasting on, but again their progress was impeded by the harrowing and stupendous clash of falling armour, which, reverberating from the various cavities around, seemed here and there, and from every direction, to be echoed with double violence, as if an hundred men in armour had, in succession, fallen down in different parts of the valley. Montmorency, having recovered from the consternation into which this singular noise had thrown him, undauntedly pursued his course, and presently discerned, by the light of the moon, the gleam- ing of a coat of mail. He immediately made up to the spot, where he found, laid along at the root of an aged oak, whose branches hurig darkling over the torrent, a knight wounded and bleeding 5 his armour was of burnished 368 LITERARY NO. XVII. steel, by his side there lay a falchion, and a sable shield embossed with studs of gold, and, dipping his casque into the stream, he was endeavouring to allay his thirst, but, through weakness from loss of blood, with difficulty he got it to his mouth. Being questioned as to his misfortune, he shook his head, and unable to speak, pointed with his hand down the glen; at the same moment, the shrieks, which had formerly alarmed Montmorency and his attend- ants, were repeated, apparently at no great distance ; and now every mark of horror was depicted on the pale and ghastly features of the dying knight; his black hair, dashed with gore, stood erect, and, stretching forth his hands towards the sound, he seemed struggling for speech, his agony became excessive, and groaning, he dropped dead upon the earth. The suddenness of this shocking event, the total ignorance of its cause, the uncouth scenery around, and the dismal wailings of distress, which still poured upon the ear with aggravated strength, left room for imagination to unfold its most hideous ideas; yet Mont- morency, though astonished, lost not his forti- tude and resolution, but determined, followir^g ;xO. xvn. hours. 369 the direction of the sound, to search for the* place whence these terrible screams seemed to issue, and recommending his men to unsheath their swords, and maintain a strict guard, cautiously followed the windings of the glen, until, abruptly turning the corner of an out- jutting crag, they perceived two corses mangled in a frightful manner, and the glimmering of light appeared through some trees that hung depending from a steep and dangerous part of the rock. Approaching a little nearer, the shrieks seemed evidently to proceed from that quarter; upon which, tying their horses to the branches of an oak, they ascended slowly and without any noise towards the light : but what was their amazement, when, by the pale glimpses of the moon, where the eye could penetrate through the intervening foliage, in a vast and yawning cavern, dimly lighted by a lamp suspended from its roof, they beheld half a dozen gigantic figures in ponderous iron armour; their vizors were up, and the lamp, faintly gleaming on their features, dis- played an unrelenting sternness capable of the most ruthless deeds. One, who had the aspect and the garb of their leader, and who, waving his scimetar, seemed menacing the rest, held Vol. L Bb 37<3 ilTERARY NO. XVI2. on his arm a massy shield, of immense circum- ference, and which, being streaked with recent blood, presented to the eye an object truly terrific. At the back part of the cave and fixed to a brazen ring* stood a female figure, and, as far as the obscurity of the light gave opportunity to judge, of a beautiful and elegant form. From her the shrieks proceeded ; she was dressed in white, and struggling violently and in a convulsive manner, appeared to have been driven almost to madness from the con- scious horror of her situation. Two of the Banditti were high in dispute* fire flashed from their eyes, and their scimetars were half unsheathed, and Montmorency, expecting that, in the fury of their passion, they would cut each other to pieces, waited the event; but* as the authority of their Captain soon checked the tumult, he rushed in with his followers, and, hurling his lance* " Villains," he ex- claimed, " receive the reward of cruelty." The lance bounded innocuous from the shield of the leader ; who turning quickly upon Mont- morency, a severe engagement ensued * they smote with prodigious strength, and the valley resounded to the clangour of their steel. Their falchions* unable to sustain the shock* shivered Ho. xvii,. hours. 3yi into a thousand pieces ; when Montmorency, instantly elevating with both hands his shield, dashed it with resistless force against the head of his antagonist; lifeless he dropped prone upon the ground, and the crash of his armour bellowed through the hollow rock. In the mean time his attendants, although they had exerted themselves with great bra- very, and had already dispatched one of the villains, were, by force of numbers, over- powered, and being bound together, the re- mainder of the Banditti rushed in upon Mont- morency just as he had stretched their com- mander upon the earth, and obliged him also, notwithstanding the most vigorous efforts of valour, to surrender. The lady who, during the rencounter, had fainted away, waked again to fresh scenes of misery, at the moment when these monsters of barbarity were conducting the unfortunate Montmorency and his com- panions to a dreadful grave. They were led, by along and intricate passage, mid an immense assemblage of rocks, which, rising between, seventy and eighty feet perpendicular, bounded on all sides a circular plain, into which no, opening was apparent, but that through which «J2 LITERARY NO. XVI X. they came. The moon shone bright, and they beheld, in the middle of this plain, a hideous chasm ; it seemed near a hundred feet in diameter, and on its brink grew several trees, whose branches, almost meeting in the centre, dropped on its infernal mouth a gloom of settled horror. " Prepare to die," said one of the Banditti ; " for inta that chasm shall ye be thrown; it is of unfathomable depth, and that ye may not be ignorant of the place ye are so soon to visit, we shall gratify your curiosity with a view of it." So saying, two of them seized the wretched Montmorency, and drag- ging him to the margin of the abyss, tied him to the trunk of a tree, and having treated his associates in the same manner, " look," cried a Banditto with a fiendlike smile, " look and anticipate the pleasures of your journey." Dismay and pale affright shook the cold limbs of Montmorency, and as he leant over the illi- mitable void, the dew sat in big drops upon his forehead. The moon's rays, streaming in between the branches, shed a dim light, suffi- cient to disclose a considerable part of the vast profundity, whose depth lay hid - y for a subter- ranean river, bursting with tremendous noise into its womb, occasioned such a mist, from no. xvii. h o u.r s. 373 the rising spray, as entirely to conceal the dreary gulph beneath. Shuddering on the edge of this accursed pit stood the miserable warrior; his eyes were starting from their sockets, and, as he looked into the dank abyss, his senses, blasted by the view, seemed ready to forsake him. Meantime the Banditti, hav- ing unbound one of the attendants, prepared to throw him in ; he resisted with astonishing strength, shrieking aloud for help, and, just as he had reached the slippery margin, every fibre of his body racked with agonising terror, he flung himself with fury backwards on the ground 3 fierce and wild convulsions seized his frame, which being soon followed by a state of exhaustion, he was, in this condition, unable any longer to resist, hurled into the dreadful chasm ; his armour striking upon the rock, there burst a sudden effulgence, and the repe- tition of the stroke was heard for many minutes as he descended down its rugged side, No words, can describe the horrible emo- tions, which, on the sight of this shocking spectacle, tortured the devoted wretches. The soul of Montmorency sank within him, and, is they unbound his last fellow -sufferer, his eyes shot forth a gleam of vengeful light, and "3 374 LITERARY NO. XVII. he ground his teeth in silent and unutterable anguish. The inhuman monsters now laid hold of the unhappy man ; he gave no opposi- tion, and, though despair sat upon his features, not a shriek, not a groan escaped him: but no sooner had he reached the brink, than making a sudden effort, he liberated an arm, and grasp- ing one of the villains round the waist, sprang headlong with him into the interminable gulf. All was silent — but at length a dreadful plunge was heard,, and the sullen deep howled fear- fully over its prey. The three remaining Banditti stood aghast ; they durst not unbind Mbntmorency, but resolved, as the tree to which he was tied grew near the mouth of the pit, to cut it down, and, by that mean, he would fall along with it into the chasm. Montmorency, who, after the example of his attendant, had conceived the hope of aven- ging himself, now saw all possibility of effect- ing that design taken away j and as the axe entered the trunk, his anguish became so ex- cessive that he fainted. The villains, observing this, determined, from a malicious prudence, to forbear, as at present he was incapable of feeling the terrors of his situation. They therefore withdrew, and left him to recover &t his leisure. NO. XVH. HOURS. 375 Not many minutes had passed away when, life and sensation returning, the hapless Mont- morency awoke to the remembrance of his fate. " Have mercy/' he exclaimed, the briny sweat trickling down his pallid features, " O Christ, have mercy then looking around him, he started at the abyss beneath, and, shrinking from its ghastly brink, pressed close against the tree. In a little time, however, he reco- vered his perfect recollection, and, perceiving that the Banditti had left him, became more composed.. His hands, which were bound behind him, he endeavoured to disentangle, and, to his inexpressible joy, after many pain- ful efforts, he succeeded so far as to loosen the cord, and, by a little more perseverance, effected his liberty. He then sought around for a place to escape through, but without success; at length, as he was passing on the other side of the chasm, he observed a part of its craggy side, as he thought, illuminated, and* advancing a little nearer, he found that it proceeded from the moon's rays shining through a large cleft of the rock, and at a very inconsiderable depth below the surface. A gleam of hope now broke in upon his despair; and gathering up the ropes which had been b b 4 376 LITERARY NO. XVII* used for himself and his associates, he tied them together, and fastening one end to the bole of a tree, and the other to his waist, he determined to descend as far as the illuminated spot. Horrible as was the experiment, he hesitated not a moment in putting it into ex- ecution, for, when contrasted with his late fears, the mere hazard of an accident weighed as nothing, and the apprehension that the villains might return before his purpose was secure, accelerated, and gave vigour to his efforts. Soon was he suspended in the gloomy abyss, and neither the roaring of the river, nor the dashing of the spray, intimidated his daring spirit, but, having reached the cleft, he crawled within it, then, loosing the cord from off his body, he proceeded onwards, and, at last, with a rapture no description can paint, discerned the appearance of the glen beneath him. He knelt down, and was returning thanks to hea^ ven for his escape, when suddenly , p* * * * * # HO. XVIII. HOUHS. 3)7 NUMBER XVIII. A work not to be raised from the heat of youth, or the vapour of wine — nor to be obtained by the invocation of Memory and her siren daughters ; but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit, w r ho can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his Seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases, Milton, No species of poetry, perhaps, is more diffi- cult of execution than the religious; the na* tural sublimity of the subject cannot be heightened but by very superior powers, and demands an imagination plastic in the extreme, vast and gigantic on the one hand, tender, luxuriant, and beautiful on the other, which can select, and vividly delineate, objects the most contrasted, the graceful inhabitant of heaven, or the appalling possessor of hell* 3 t 7$ LITER'ARY. NO. XVIII. which can, in short, combine the force and sublimity of Michael Angelo with the sweet- ness and amenity of Guido Rheni. The slightest failure too, either in point of language or conception, will frequently, in this province of the poetic art, destroy the whole scope find purport of an elaborate work, for, this subject being of the utmost import- ance and solemnity, and essentially connected with all that is interesting to the mind pf man, the most exquisite taste is required in adopting 'throughout the whole a diction appropriate to the weight of sentiment, and in colouring with a chastity and even severity of style those creations of fancy whicli are necessary to the constitution of the fable. Any unguarded levies any want of adaptation in phraseology, or in fiction, will immediately be felt, and will mt ort ly annihilate the - effect intended of the part eilk which they atte introduced, but will materially injure y and throw an air of ridicule over' the entire poem. Imbecilities of this kirid perpetually disgrace the pages of Quarles, Crksliaw, and most of the writers of sacred poesy previous to the age of Milton, and nearly d>bfeei*ate the pleasure 'arising from their purer 3 ho. xvm. hours. 379 passages. A vigour of imagination, indeed^ and a simplicity in composition and idea ade- quately combined for the production of a sublime religious poem, form a faculty of rare attainment, and \vhich has been exerted with, felicity in only three or four instances since the birth of Christianity jj for the reiterated attempts of the poets of Italy, in the language of either ancient or modern Rome, are by no means worthy of their subject. tiii rmwi^o to c gnuoi io aoiimm'yjh mriifci Our celebrated countryman, the immortal Milton, may therefore be considered as the very first, who with true dignity supported the weight of his stupendous theme, ^ TO tfloi|*ilnji Ip / : fi For Atlantean Spirit proper charge. Gifted with a mind pre-eminently sublime, and richly stored with all the various branches of learning and science, with an ear attuned to harmony, and a taste chastised by cultiva- tion, the divine bard projected and completed a poem, which has challenged the admiration of each succeeding age, and is, without ex- aggeration, the noblest monument of human, genius. 3S0 LITERARY NO. XVIII. With powers inferior to Milton, turgid, ob- scure, and epigrammatic, yet with occasional sallies of imagination, and bursts of sublimity that course along the gloom with the rapidity and brilliancy of lightning, Young has in his Night Thoughts become a favourite not only with the multitude here, but with many of the nations upon the continent, for, with the bulk of mankind, there is little discrimination be- tween the creative energy of Milton, and the tumid declamation of Young, or between the varied pauses of highly-finished blank-verse and a succession of monotonous lines. Young has, however, the merit of originality : for few authors who have written so much have left fainter traces of imitation, or in the happy hour of inspiration more genuine and peculiar excellence. The felicity of producing a sacred epic that may be thrown into competition with the ■Paradise Lost has been claimed, and, justly claimed, by the literati of Germany. Klqp- stock, though possessing not the. stem and gigantic sublimity of Mikoi), still elevates the mind by the vigour and novelty of his fiction* HO. XVIII. HOURS. g8l and is certainly more tender and pathetic than the English Bard. " The edifice of Milton/ 5 says the ingenious Herder, " is a stedfast and well-planned building, resting on ancient co- lumns. Klopstock's is an enchanted Dome, echoing with the softest and purest tones of human feeling, hovering between heaven and earth, borne on angels' shoulders. Milton's Muse is Masculine — Klopstock's is a tender woman dissolving in pious ecstacies, warbling elegies and hymns. — When music shall acquire among us the highest powers of her art, whose words will she select to utter but those of Klopstock?"* Impartial posterity will pro- bably confirm this opinion of the critic, but omit, as I have done, the epithet harsh as ap- plicable to-Miltonic numbers; and it will as- suredly annul the idea of Herder that Klop- stock " has won for the language of his coun- try more powers than the Briton ever sus- pected his to possess j" for the strength and energy, the varied harmony and beauty of the English language, the words that breathe and burn, are displayed with prodigality in the pages of Milton : nor will it be conceded that the language of Germany, as even now im- proved and polished, is at all superior to the * Herder's Letters on Humanization, 382 LITERARY NO. XVlH. nervous yet harmonious diction of Great Britain. It is to be lamented however, that no version of the Messiah at all adequate to the merit of its celerated author has been yet in- troduced into our island. Blank-verse, cast in the Miitonic mould, would be the only suit- able vehicle for the bold and beautiful ima- gery of this poem, which, when thus clothed, could not fail of exciting; the admiration of the public* * It is remarkable that the third book of the Messiah opens with an invocation to Light $ it therefore immediately courts a comparison with the celebrated address of Milton, in his third book, to the same element : both poets have traversed the infernal world, and are approaching the confines of the terrestrial globe. The parallelism will confirm the opinion of Herder with regard to the superior sublimity of the English bard, who in this passage certainly excels himself, and when lamenting his deprivation of sight, an adjunctive circumstance, which Klopstock fortunately for himself had it not in his power to introduce, is more pa- thetic, perhaps, than any other poet. The German is tender* elegant, and impressive, the characteristics of his style, according to the critics of his country, throughout the whole of his ela- borate work. For the following translation of the commencement of the third book of the Messiah, I am indebted to my friend Mr. Good. Every reader will recollect the parallel invocation in Milton, "Hail, holy light," &c. &c. Once more I hail thee, once behold thee more, Earth! soil maternal ! thee, whose womb of yore Bore me ; and soon, beneath whose gelid breast^ These limbs shall sink in soft and sacred rest. Yet may I first complete this work begun, And sing the covenant of th 1 Eternal Sor? 0 no. xvni. fiouks. . From the brief mention of these three divine bards, we pass on to the immediate subject of our paper, The Calvary of Mr. Cum- berland, a work imbued with the genuine spirit of Milton, and destined therefore, m<>s ; O l then these lips, his heavenly love that told, These eyes that oft in streams of rapture roll'd, Shall close in darkness !— o'er my mouldering clay A few fond friends their duteous rites shall pay, And with the palm, the laurel's deathless leaf Deck my light turf, and prove their pious grief. There shall I sleep, till o'er this mortal dust, Springs, long announced, the morning of the just 5 Then, fresh embodied in a purer mold, Triumphant rise, and brighter scenes behold. Thou! Muse of Sion t who, with potent spell, Thro' hell hast led me, and returned from hell, Still shuddering at the voyage : — thou whose eye Can oft the thoughts of God himself descry, And, thro 1 the frown that veils his awful face., Read the fair lines of love, and heav'nly grace,-— Shine on this soul ! that trembles at the sight Of her own toils, with pure celestial light j Raise her low powers, that yet, with loftier wing, The best of men, the Saviour Gqd she sing. In a letter addressed to the princess Royal of England in 1797, by the Rev. Herbert Croft, he announces a version, line for line, of Kiopstock's Messiah in English hexameters, a spe- cimen of which he has given in this epistle. The completion of this undertaking is the more desirable, as he enjoys ihe advantage of a personal and intimate acquaintance with the German Homer, and can consult him on tke meaning of every obscure passage. 384 LITERARY KO. XVIIf, probably, to immortality. On this, the latest effort in sacred poetry, and which has not yet met with the attention it so justly merits, we propose offering some general observations, as relative to fable, character, language, &c. and shall afterwards proceed to notice the particu- lar and more striking beauties of each book j a review, which, from the passages adduced, will assuredly tempt the reader to peruse the whole, and probably to place this performance among the choicest products of the Muse. It has been objected to Milton, that in his Paradise Regained he has taken too conf :ied a view of the subject, and by restricting the theatre of action to the Temptation in the wilderness, attributed solely to that event the redemption of mankind. To this, Milton was probably induced by the charm of contrast, by the desire of shewing the world that in the preceptive and moral, as well as in the grand and sublime epic, he was equally pre-eminent : and it must be confessed he has happily suc- ceeded f for the mild yet majestic beauties of the Paradise Regained, its weight of precept and exquisite morality, its richness of senti- jnent, and simplicity of diction, call as loudly No.xvm. a: otnts* 385 for approbation and applause as the more splendid and terrible graces, the whirlwind and commotion of the prior poem. What the critics have very unjustly blamed Milton for not effecting, Mr. Cumberland, stretching a more ample canvass, has perform* ed, and given to the Crucifixion and Resur- rection of our Saviour, the importance and the consequences they demand. That the action should be one, entire and great, has been repeated, and approved of, from the days of Aristotle to the present pe- riod, and no argument human or divine could better adapt itself to the axiom than the one we are now considering, pregnant as it is with the greatest events, and terminated by a cata- strophe, beyond all comparison, to man the most interesting and propitious; for, in strict adhesion to the simple narrative of the Evan- gelists, the Last Supper and the Resurrection form the limits of the work, and produce the requisite unity. On a subject whose basis is truth itself, and involving the whole compass of our religion, any the smallest deviation from Scriptural fact had been injudicious ia Vol. I. Ce 386 LITERARY KO. XVllt. the extreme, and even disgusting. The re- sources of the poet, therefore, the materials of fiction and imagination, were to be drawn frortl that mine which Milton had so fortunately opened, and which Mr. Cumberland has prov- ed to be still productive of the finest ore, not less rich, nor of inferior quality to that which we have been accustomed so highly and so ju- diciously to value. The agency of angels and demons, the delineation of the regions appro- priated to the blessed or the damned, give ample scope to the genius of the poet, and spring as it were from the very nature of the theme. The term fable, therefore, as applied to a poem founded on the religion of Christ, can only with propriety be affixed to the con- ceptions of the poet, the rest being established on facts which ought to admit of no obliquity or modification. Taking; it however as a whole, the result of truth and fiction, it will appear to possess every requisite for epic action, unity integrity "and magnitude. After an assemblage of the devils to conspire the de- struction of Christ, and the delegation of 7 o Mammon as the temptor of Iscariot, the Last Supper takes place in strict conformity to the relation of St. John, and which is immediately NO. XVIII. HOURS. 587 followed by the treason of Judas, who, repair- ing to the Sanhedrim, proposes the betrayal of his master. The priests and elders, after accepting the offer, retire, and Satan and his peers immediately resume their seats, and decree, and perform an ovation to Mammon for his success \ but on the appearance of Chemos, who had been stationed as a spy on the Mount of Olives, and had been wounded by the spear of Gabriel, Satan suddenly dis^ solves the assembly, and rushes forth to encounter that archangel. Christ meanwhile protected by Gabriel undergoes the agony in the garden; and upon the approach of Satan, this supporting angel prepares to chastise and dismiss him, when Christ, drawing near, by the word of power casts him to the ground in tor- ments. At this moment Judas advances, and Christ is seized* while Satan, unable to rise* bursts into lamentation, till, at lengthy dis- covered through the gloom by Mammon^ he is assisted, and once more stands erect. Con- scious to the power of Christ he prophesies his impending doom, and immediately lifted from the earth, is hurled by a tremendous tempest to the regions of the damned. The condero* nation of Christ, the denial and contrition of 3^8 LITERARY NO. XVIII. Peter now follow, with an implicit adherence to the Gospel narrative, and are succeeded by the remorse of Judas Iscariot, who, instigated by Mammon, destroys himself, whilst that evil spirit taking wing repairs to the wilderness, convenes the demons, informs them of Satan's expulsion from the earth, and warns them to flight ere the hour of Christ's crucifixion; they accordingly disperse, and the crucifixion, wit- nessed by Gabriel and the angels who are stationed on the Mount, immediately ensues, The poet next hastens to describe the descent into the regions of Death, whither Christ,borne on the wings of angels, is instantly conveyed. Here, prostrate at the throne of that formi - dable phantom, whose person and palace are described at large, and whose ^assistance the enemy of mankind had in vain been imploring, Satan is discovered by the Messiah, and, at his command, hurled by the vindictive angel, into the bottomless pit ; its horrors are de- scribed, and Death, conscious that his power is overthrown, tenders his crown and key at the feet of the Redeemer, and the revivification of those saints who are destined to the first resurrection immediately commences. These are now received by Christ, who appears to them enveloped in glory ; r tbey pay him HO. XVIII. HOURS. 389 homage, and are assured of immortality as thp reward of virtue. Abraham confers with Christ, and is shown the vision of the heavenly Jerusalem, as described in the Apocalypse. Christ reascends to earth, and after an address from Gabriel, explaining the purport of the resurrection, and a conference between Moses and that angel, a paradise springs up within the regions of Death, and the poem terminates with the departure of Gabriel. Such is the outline of this arduous under- taking, which, though requiring much judg- ment and genius to conduct with propriety, ap- pears to be well adapted for epic action, and is free from the objections commonly made to the Paradise Lost of Milton, who has been fre- quently censured for its melancholy catas- trophe, for the abject condition in which our first parents are left, and for having chosen the Devil for his hero. Without inquiry con- cerning the justness of these remarks, we may observe of Calvary, that it is not obnoxious to similar spleen ; the Messiah, though exposed to the machinations of Satan, and suffering all that man could inflict, being repeatedly and finally triumphant. ^3 39° LITERARY NO* XVIII. Nor will it be any ground for rational objec- tion, that the allegorical personage Death acts so conspicuous a part in this poem ; for, though Milton has felt the lash of criticism for per- sonification of this kind, in Calvary, the intro- duction of the king of terrors was almost a necessary part of the action, few circumstances being more frequently insisted upon by the authors of our Testament, than the conquest and humiliation of Death by the Messiah, and the consequent resurrection of his saints. If we now advert to the characters of Mr. Cumberland, we may rerhark that, though not in possession of originality, they are Well drawn &nd well supported. The materials he has made use of, and the models he has copied from, are of transcendent excellence : and to have woven these into a new whole, to have imitated these sublime writings without losing a portion of their first spirit and raciness, is to have achieved a work of difficulty and danger, that claims and will acquire both grateful and durable praise. No characters in the whole j by confinement till reformation," * For the purpose of producing repentance and reformation. 398 literarV no. xviii. cc As then unceasing torments can answer no possible good end to any one in the universe, I conclude them to be neither the will nor work of God. Could I suppose them /I must believe them to be inflicted by a wantonness or cruelty, which words cannot express, nor heart conceive. But let this be the comfort of every humble soul, known unto God are all his works ; the Judge of all shall do right ; and He ordereth all things Well. .It hath pleased Him to reconcile all things to Himself. Therefore to Him shall bow every knee ; and every tongue shall say, " In the Lord I have strength, and I have righteousness." * There appears to be an inconsistency, like- wise, in representing Judas Iscariot as a subtile metaphysician, and soliloquising profoundly on the doctrines of Free-Will and Philosophi- cal Necessity. Milton, it is true, has painted * A celebrated controversy of this kind took place between Petit-pierre and his brethr 11, the clergy of Neufchatel, in which the former was supported by Frederick the Great. The King, however, Petit-pierre, and Marshal Keith, with their doctrine of final salvation, were', after long discussion, obliged to quit the field 5 the clergy maintained their pi * , tie ;cs, and the King declared that " puisqu'ils avoient si fort a cceur d'etre damftes cternelkment/' he should no longer oppose their determination. Williams's Tour in Switzerland, vol.it. 148. no, xviii. hour s. 399 his demons as disputing on these intricate topics, and in his third book has introduced the Deity with a view to their solution ; but M. Cumberland should have remembered that Judas was both ignorant and uneducated, and consequently unapt for nice and subtile disquisitions. Another impropriety, though of a different kind, occurs in the character of Satan, who, notwithstanding his acute distress and torture, finds leisure for reference to the fables of pagan antiquity, and draws a comparison between himself and some of their most romantic personages : Ah ! who will lift me from this iron bed, On which, Promctheus-like^ for ever link'd And riveted by dire necessity, I 'm doom'd to lie ! Who will unbrace This scalding mail that burns my tortur'd breast Worse than the shirt of Nessus f Now it is contrary to nature and experience to suppose that a person in acute pain should have inclination thus fancifully to comment 400 LITERARY NO. XVIIL upon and compare his sufferings ; and though ancient mythology and fiction may, in the way of ornament, embellish the narrative part of a religious poem, they should never be referred to as matters of undoubted fact, and especially in a speech of a chief character whilst labouring under the utmost agony of mind and body. It hath already been observed that in gene- ral, Mr. Cumberland has copied the simplicity and even adhered to the very words of Scrip- ture : but in a few instances he has deviated from this judicious rule, and in no place more •than where, recording the denial of Peter, he exclaims ; Hark ! again The cock's loud signal echoes back the lie In his convicted ear ; the prophet bird Strains his recording throat, and up to heaven Trumpets the treble perjury, and claps His wings in triumph o'er presumption's fall. I l ow preferable, how simple, yet how beau- tiful and expressive the language of St. Luke, " immediately the cock crew ; and the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter, and Peter remembered the word of the Lord, and he- NO. XVIII. HOURS. 4CI went out and wept bitterly." The imagery of Mr. Cumberland would make a figure in the works of Marino, but is totally unworthy of the dignity and sublimity of the theme he has chosen. Immediately subsequent, however, to these faulty lines, occurs a passage of the most exquisite taste and beauty, and which, in. justice to our author, we shall quote in this place. They form an admirable comment upon these words of the Evangelist- — " the Lord turned and looked upon Peter." The poet supposes himself addressing the erring disciple, and exclaims ; - — ■ Lock upon his eyes ! Behold, they turn on thee : Them dos t thou know ? Their language canst thou read, and from them draw The conscious reminiscence thou disownst ? Mark, is their sweetness lost ? Ah ! no ; they beam Celestial grace, a sanctity of soul So melting soft with pity, such a gleam Of love divine attempting mild reproof, Where is the man, that to obtain that eve Of mercy on his sins would not iorego Life's dearest comforts to embrace such hope ? O death, death ! where would be thy sting, or where These awful tremblings, which thy coming stirs In my too conscious breast, might I aspire To hope my judge would greet me with that look ? Vol. I. D d C 4°s ] NUMBER XIX. Tartaream intendk vocem ; qua protinus omnis Contremuit " tellus." Virgil, Come d'Autunno si levan le foglie L'lHia appresso dell 5 altra, infin che 'Iranie Rende alia terra tutte le sue spoglie ; Similemente il mal seme— Gittansi ad una ad una Dante* The fable, characters, and sentiments having been noticed in the preceding number, a few observations on the versification and diction of Calvary, will conclude these preliminary re- marks ; and, in the first place, let it be ob- served, that of the various kinds of metre in which the poets of Great Britain have de- lighted to compose., none is of such difficult execution as blank verse, none more requiring a practised ear, or a more extensive knowledge d d 2 404 LITERARY NO. XIX. of language and of style. Two great masters in this mode of composition we possess, Shak- speare and Milton, both pre-eminent in their respective walks, but the former perhaps more generally harmonious. In Milton, a style elaborate and abounding in transposition, mingled with foreign, idiom, and scientific terms, and frequently clogged with parenthesis, admits not of that facility and flow so conspi- cuous in the dramatic bard, whose works pre- sent us with the most musical and felicitous specimens of blank verse we can boast of. Not that Milton is deficient in harmony, for his Paradise Lost displays, more than any other poem perhaps, every variety of pause and rhythm, but neither his subject, nor his genius, led to that sweetness and simplicity of diction so wonderfully captivating in the drama of his predecessor. Energy, majesty, a deeper and severer strain of harmony, pervade the pages of Milton; his the full-toned melody of the peal- ing organ, Shakspeare's the softer breathings of the. lute or harp, for though surrounded by magic and incantation, and all the horrors of supernatural agency, Shakspeare still preserves a style free from intricacy, and melting with the sweetest cadence. NO. XIX. HOURS. 405 To throw, therefore, these different modes of composition into one work; in the dramatic parts to assume the language and style of Shakspeare, in the more elevated and epic portion, the diction and manner of Milton, appears to have been the aim of Mr. Cumber- land, and an attempt, too, in which he has in a great measure succeeded. The speeches of the Demons in the first book, and those of Mammon and Iscariot in the second and third, are woven in the loom of Shakspeare, and have imbibed much of his colouring and spirit, whilst the latter part of the third and fourth books, and the greater part of the seventh, are admirable copies of the Miltonic versification and imagery. Various passages, which will shortly be selected from the different* books, will fully prove the truth of this remark; a number of phrases likewise, interspersed through the body of the work, whisper whence they have been taken, and are often indeed exact transcriptions, though well chosen and well introduced, from the leaves of our immortal Dramatist. To quote many of these would be superfluous; two or three being adequate to give the reader an idea of their d d 3 406 LITERARY NO. XIX, nature and manner, either as literal or liberal imitations. — Heav'n and earth ! Must I remember ? It leads to death, it marshals him the road To that oblivious bourne whence none return; I saw large drops and gouttes of bloody sweat Incarnadine the dust on which they fell. Weary days and nights I've minister'd to him without reward, And weary miles full many travell'd o'er, Fainting and pinch'd with hunger ; then at night, When the wild creatures of the earth find rest And covert in their holes, houseless have watch'd Amidst the shock of elements, and brav'd Storms, which the mail'd rhinoceros did not dare Unshelter'd to abide. Perspicuity, that first requisite of a good style either in prose .or verse, Mr. Cumber- land has seldom violated, and his similics and metaphors are, for the most part, appro- priate, bold, and accurate, Some instances, however, might be culled, in which the me- NO. XIX. HOURS. 407 tapbor is obscure and broken : the following may be adduced, and will suffice, as a specimen of these defects. — — * His voice Nowfalter'd and his thoughts unsettled, wild And dnVri at random like a wreck, could grasp No helm of reason. A thought grasping the helm of reason is certainly a strained and incongruous meta- phor : but of faults of this kind there are but few, for it may be said of the general style of this poem, that it is chaste, clear, and flowing; in its dramatic parts energic ; in its epic, dignified and sublime, free from inflation, or harsh transposition, and forming a happy union between the styles of Shakspeare and of Milton. We shall now proceed^ according to pro- mise, to select the more striking beauties of each book; from whence the reader will be enabled to judge for himself of the propriety of the above observations, and of the real and peculiar merits of the work itself. The first book, which is entirely occupied by the assembling of the devils, forms a closer 23 D 4 40 8 LITERARY NO. XIX. copy of Milton than any of the succeeding ones ; the characters and employment of these agents being very similar to those in the first and second books of Paradise Lost. We shall however find sufficient variety to attract attention, and to denote the operation of considerable genius. Satan, prowling the wilderness by night, arrives at the very spot on which he had for- merly tempted Christ ; which giving rise to re- flection of no very pleasant nature, he vents his despair in soliloquy. Determined, however^ to revenge and repair his defeat, he ascends a lofty mountain, and calls together, from every quarter of the globe, his fallen companions. So loud he call'd, that to the farthest bounds Of pagan isle or continent was heard His voice, re-echoing thro' the vault of heav'n. The demons, obedient to his command, i flocking together ; the poet beautifully adds : Now T glimm'ring twilight streak'd the Eastern sky, For he, that on his forehead brings the morn, Star-crowned Phosphorus, had heard the call, And with the foremost stood. NO. XIX. HOURS. 409 An invocation to his Muse now follows; in which, allusions to Milton's blindness and his own age are introduced in a pleasing manner. Come, Muse, and to your suppliant's eyes impart One ray of that pure light, which late you pour'd On the dark orbs of your immortal Bard Eclips'd by drop serene : Conduct me now ; Me from my better days of bold emprize Far in decline, and with the hoary hand Of Time hard stricken, yet adventuring forth O'er Nature's limits into worlds unseen, Peopled with shadowy forms arad phantoms dire : Oh ! bear me on your pinions in this void, Where weary foot ne'er rested ; and behold ! All hell bursts forth : Support me, or I sink. No task is attended with so much danger and difficulty as that of emulating the design and colouring of a great master; the compa- rison can be immediately drawn, and seidoiri is it to the advantage of the daring adventurer who thus presumes to cope with acknowledged excellence. The consultations of the devils in Paradise Lost and in Calvary bear the closest affinity ; the active personages are the same ; Satan, Baal, Moloch, Belial, and Mammon, arc the speakers in both ; nor was it possible for Mr* Cumberland to deviate with propriety 4IO LITERARY NO. XIX from the manners and attributes which Mil- ton has chosen to ascribe to them. There is* however, added, and with consummate taste, much that is picturesque, much that is dra- matic, and as the views with which the de- mons consult are not exactly the same, injury to God and man in Milton being attempted through the fall of Eve, in Cumberland through the destruction of Christ, scope is left for, and has been occupied by, new imagery and new argument. The author of Calvary, therefore, notwithstanding the pre-descriptions of Mil- ton, has ventured to give new portraits of his orators, and it will be necessary, that we may judge of his merit and success, to contrast * them with the pictures in Paradise Lost; & comparison that will furnish no inutile enter- tainment, and clearly shew what judgment may achieve, though in a walk already beaten by the footsteps of Genius. These sketches therefore I sh ill place alternately, and com- mence with Milton : First Moloch, horrid king, besmear'd with blood Of human sacrifice, and parent's tears,] Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud Their children's cries unheard, that pass'd thro' fire To his grim idol. Milton. NO. XIX. HOURS. 411 Moloch m the van, Mail'd at all points for war, with spear and helm And plumed crest, and garments roll'd in blood, Flam'd like a meteor. Cumberland. Next came one Who mourn'd in earnest, when the captive ark Maim'd his brute image, head and hands lopt off In his own temple, on the grunsel edge, Where he fell flat, and sham'd his worshippers : Dagon his name, sea monster, upward man And downward fish. Milton. ■ ' "* Dagon, giant god, amidst the ranks, Like TenerifF or Etna, proudly tower'd : Dagon of Gath and Askalon the boast In that sad flight, when on Gilboa's mount The shield of Saul was vilely thrown away, And Israel's beauty perish'd. Cumberland. Belial came last, than whom a sprite more lewd Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love Vice for itself : to him no temple stood Or altar smok'd : yet who more oft than he In temples and at altars, when the priest Turns atheist, as did Eli's sons, who fill'd With lust and violence the house of God t 412; LITERARY NO. XIX. In courts and palaces he also reigns And in luxurious cities, where the noise Of riot ascends above the loftiest towers, And injury and outrage : And when night Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine. Milton. But now a fairer form arrests the eye Of hell's despotic lord : his radiant vest Of Tyrian purple, studded thick with gems, Flow'd graceful : He for courts was form'd, for feasts, For ladies' chambers, and for amorous sports ; He lov'd not camps, nor the rude toils of war; Belial his name ; around his temples twin'd A wreath of roses, and where'er he pass'd His garments fann'd a breeze of rich perfume : No ear had he for the shrill-toned trump, Him the soft warble of the Lydian flute Delighted rather, the love-soothing harp, Sappho's loose song, and the Aonian Maids And zoneless Graces floating in the dance ; Yet from his lips sweet eloquence distill'd, As honey from the bee. Cumberland. In the two first quotations, few perhaps will deny to Mr. Cumberland a greater warmth and beauty of conception, and in the third he is NO. XIX. HOURS. 413 equal, though not superior to Milton : but in the following portrait of Baal, he certainly sinks beneath his celebrated predecessor : ■ With grave Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd A pillar of slate ; deep on his front engraven Deliberation sat and public care; And princely counsel in his face yet shone, Majestic though in ruin : sage he stood With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear The w 7 eight of mightiest monarchies ; his look Drew audience and attention still as night Or summer's noon- tide air, Milton. ~ — * — Beside him one Of towering stature and majestic port, Himself a host : his black and curling iocks Down his herculean shoulders copious flow'd ; In glittering brass upon his shield he bore A kingly eagle, ensign of command, Baal his name, second to none in state, Save only his great chieftain, worshipp'd long In Babylon, till Daniel drove him thence With all his gluttonous priests ; exalted since High above all the idol gods of Greece, Thron'd on Olympus, and his impious hand Ann'd with the thunder. Cumberland. 414 LITERARY NO. XIX. The debate now ensues, in which the speeches, though by no means so sublime as those in Milton, are strongly characteristic and well supported. Moloch, as in Paradise Lost, after making a furious oration, is succeeded by Belial, and as the passage in Milton delineating these demori3 has been justly admired, we shall transcribe it here with the corresponding one in Calvary, nor have we any hesitation in affirming that Mr. Cumberland has much im- proved upon our divine bard, and thrown his contrasted demons into much more picturesque and dramatic attitudes. He ended-frowning, and his look denounced Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous To less than Gods. On the other side uprose Belial, in act more graceful and humane ; A fairer person lost not heaven ; he seem'd For dignity compos'd and high exploit : But all was false and hollow. Milton. Breathless he paus'd, so rapid was the pulse Of his high-beating heart, he stood as one Choak'd and convuls'd with rage ; when as he ceas\l> He smote his mailed habergeon so loud, HelUs armed legions heard, and shook their spears Betok'ning war.*—— NO. XIX. HOURS. Yet not long; His triumph, for now Eelial from the ranks Graceful advanc'd, and as he put aside His purple robe in act to speak, the throng, Such was the dazzling beauty of his form, Fell back a space. Cumberland. Belial in his speech having suggested the propriety of employing Mammon as a tempter of Christ's disciples, Satan adopts the hint, and calls upon that spirit to effect the seduction of Iscariot. Mammon accepts the office, and Satan, filled with enthusiasm and fancied tri- umph, exclaims ; Prophetic visions burst upon me : J see the traitor Judas with a band Of midnight ruffians seize his peaceful Lord : They drag him to the bar, accuse, condemn ; He bleeds, he dies ! Darkness involves the rest. The exultation of this tremendous being, his self-delusion, and the obscurity that still rests upon his hopes, are finely contrived, and give additional interest to the part he per- forms. Mammon, meanwhile, departs on his embassy, 4 l6> LITERARY NO. XIX, -L — no longer now Crouching with age and pain, but nerv'd anew, As with a spell transform'd, erect he stood With towering stature tallest of the throng, And looks of high supremacy and state. And now from either shoulder he unfurl'd His wide-stretch'd pinions, and uprising swift Tower'd in mid-air ; the host with loud acclaim Hail'd his ascent; he on the well-pois'd wing Hover'd awhile, till from his cloudy height, Sweeping the wide horizon, he descried, Far in the west the holy city of God, His destin'd port, then to the orient sun Turn'd his brqad vans, and plied their utmost speed. Though the first book from the nature of its plan has, as we have already observed, neces- sarily the air of a copy, yet the oratorical parts possess very considerable merit, and ex- hibit much adaptation both in style and sen- timent. The language of Belial melts with voluptuousness, and in strains of the softest cadence he still flatters himself with an eternal reign, whilst Moloch breathes nothing but inexorable revenge and hatred of the blackest hue. The terrific traits in the character of Satan are strongly marked, and he maintains his supremacy in the synod for matchless sin NO. XIX. HOURS. 417 and subtlety, whilst Mammon embraces his arduous mission, and expatiates on his inde- fatigable and avaricious labours with great energy and triumph. Cliemos, the sin of Moab, and the Zidonian Goddess Ashtoreth, are likewise distinguished in the crowd, and the former will again appear performing no unimportant part. The temptation of Tudasand the Last Sup- per form the subjects of the second book, which opens with Mammon under the disguise of a venerable Levite. With infinite address he stimulates the avarice and discontent of Iscariot, and obtains a promise of his final answer before the priests and elders that even- ing. The dialogue is carried on with much art and spirit; the subtlety and eloquence of the Fiend, the envy, avarice, and revenge of the Disciple, are strikingly drawn, and the changes wrought upon him through the influence of this infernal agent marked with precision. The language of Mammon is im- pressive, and powerfully appeals to the ruling frailty of his wretched auditor : . Alas for him Who serves a master, that— * — Vol, L , E e 4*8 LITERARY NO. XIX. Makes poverty his passport into heaven, .And bids us throw away life's present means For doubtful chance of interest after life ; And art thou of all reason so bereft As to account prosperity a crime, Or think none blest but him, whose every step Through misery's thorny path is mark'd with blood ? O son of Simon, take thy last resolve ; Either resign thy body to the worm, And die with Christ, or him renounce, and live Rich, honour'd, prosperous, and enjoy the world. , . — Throw aside That beggar's purse, your starving office spurn, Serve God's high priest, whose treasury is full; Cast those few mites away, the scanty dole Of some contaminating leper's hand, For which you bid God heal him and pass on ; Whilst he, good credulous soul, cries out amain, As powerful fancy works, Lo ! I am clean ; Behold a miracle ! But gold performs Greater and happier miracles than this : Gold with a touch can heal the mind's'disease, Quicken the slow-paced blood, and make it dance In tides of rapture through each thrilling vein ; Cast out that worst of demons, poverty, And with a spell exorcise the sad heart, Haunted with spectres of despair and spleen, If then this prize can tempt thee, if thy soul Still thirsts for life, for riches, for repose, If in thy breast there dwells that manly scorn. / NO. XIX. HOURS. 419 Which slighted merit feels, when envious pride Thrusts it aside to build th' unworthy up, Now, now assert it ; from a Master turn, Who turns from thee, who before thee exalts Thy meaner brethren, Peter, James, and John : On them his partial smile forever beams, They have his love, his confidence, his heart; Of them revolting he might well complain, Of thee he cannot ; thine were just revenge : He is no traitor, who resents a wrong; Who shares no confidence, can break no trust. Bid conscience then be still, let no weak qualms Damp thy reviving spirit ; but when night Wraps her dark curtain round this busy world, Come thou to Caiphas. — The remainder of the book is occupied in the narration of the Last Supper, in which there is almost a literal adherence to the Gos- pel of St. John. To have materially altered the language of Scripture oil such a subject, or to have tinged with the hues of fancy, events so solemn and momentous* so accu- rately related and known, would have been highly injudicious. All that was left to the poet, therefore, were the charms of versifica- tion, and the liberty of retouching and height- ening those parts of the picture that seemed to demand more powerful expression. A most e e 2 420 LITERARY NO. XIX. pleasing portrait of our Saviour, and which combines the chaste simplicity of Raphael with the sweetness of Corregio, is thus finished from the outline of Scripture : — r ~ All eyes Were center' d on the Saviour's face divine, Which with the brightness of the Godhead mix'd Traces of human sorrow, and displayed v The workings of a mind, where mercy seem'd Strug-diner to reconcile some mortal wrong. To pardon and forbearance : Such a look Made silence sacred ; every tongue was mute ; E'en Peter's zeal forbore the vent of words, Or spent itself in murmurs half supprest. At length the meek Redeemer rais'd his eyes, Where gentle resignation, tempering grief, Beara'd grace ineffable on all around. After an awful and pathetic address of Christ to his disciples, and an invocation to the Father in their behalf the poet thus beauti- fully describes their effect- So spake the Lord, and with these gracious words His faithful remnant cheer' d ; for soft they fell As heav'n's blest dew upon the thirsty hills, And sweet the healing balm which they distiiPd On sorrow-wounded souls. NO* XX. POURS. 421 NUMBER XX. Itene maledetti al vostro regno, Regno di pene, e di perpetua morre : E siano in quegli a voi dovuti chiostri Le vostre guerre, et i trionfi vostri Tasso. The necessity of strictly adhering to the events,, and frequently to the very words of Scripture, must unavoidably damp the excur- sive spirit of the poet, and compel him to the task of mere imitation. In the last book, little could with propriety be added to the circum- stantial detail of the Evangelist, who, in a style abounding in the most exquisite sim- plicity and pathos, has faithfully recorded every word and action of his divine Master : but the treason of Judas, the subject of the third, admitting more embellishment from the stores of imagination, accordingly presents the EE 3 422 LITERARY NO. XX. reader with much novel imagery, and much dramatic and epic machinery. The soliloquies of Iscariot, though rather too metaphysical, are well conceived, and the debates of the San^ hedrim are animated and eloquent, whilst the harangue of Judas when proposing the betrayal of Christ, is throughout nervous, and glows with Shaksperian energy and phrase. The fiery and bigoted Caiphas forms an excellent poetic character; his sentiments ^re inflamed with the fiercest enthusiasm and zeal, and his gestures betray the wild agitation of his soul, rendered still more striking from the mild and rational opposition of Nicodemus, whose phi- lanthropy and tolerating policy serve but to increase the storm which rages in the bosom of this implacable priest. On the breaking up of the unhallowed meeting, the poet has admirably conceived and described Satan and his peers occupying the seats of its persecuting numbers. Clear the hall, Yield up your seats, ye substituted fiends; Hence, minor demons ! give your masters place ! ^nd hark ! the King of Terrors speaks the word. NO. XX. HOURS, 423 He calls his shadowy princes, they start forth, Expand themselves to sight and throng the hall, A synod of infernals : Forms more dire Imagination shapes not, when the wretch, Whom conscience haunts, in the dead hour of night, Whilst all is dark and silent round his bed, Sees hideous phantoms in his feverish dream, That stare him into madness with rix'd eyes And threat'ning faces floating in his brain. Mammon, having prospered in his attempt upon Iscariot, Satan in a speech of exultation and triumph bestows the most lavish enco- miums on that spirit, and decrees an ovation in honour of his success. The following descrip- tion in which the minstrels are represented as chanting their hymn, is given in verse of very harmonious structure, and ir a vein of the purest poetry ; the concluding lines are pecu- liarly excellent. ' — — From either side the throne, Upon the signal, a seraphic choir In equal bands came forth ; the minstrels strike Their golden harps ; swift o'er the sounding strings Their rlying fingers sweep ; whilst to the strain, Melodious voices, though to heavenly airs Aitun'd no longer, still in sweet accord Echo the festive song, now full combin'd, E £ 4 424 LITERARY NO. XX. Pouring the choral torrent on the ear, In pares responsive now warbling by turns Their sprightly quick divisions, swelling now Through all die. compass of their tuneful throats Their varying cadences, as fancy prompts. Whereat the Stwian herd, like them of old Lull'd by the Theban minstrel, stood at gaze Mute and appeas'd ; for music hath a voice, Which ev n the devils obey, and for a while Sweet sounds shall lay their turbid hearts asleep, Charm'd into sweet oblivion and repose. The praise of Mammon the rapt seraphs sung And Gold's almighty pow'r; free flow'd the verse ; No need to call the Muse, for all were there, Apollo, and the Heliconian Maids, And all that pagan poet e ? er invok'd W ere present to the song. Above the flight Gf bold Alcaeus, Tisias bard divine, • Or Pindar's strain Olympic, high it soar'd In dithyrambic majesty sublime. Chemosh now rushing in wounded by the spear of Gabriel, who had detected that demon as a spy on the Mount of Olives, puts an end to the plaudits of the Synod, and Satan, in- furiated by the appearance and relation of Chemos, determines to encounter Gabriel, and boasts himself superior in prowess to that archangel, in 'terms the most galling and spi- rited ; NO. XX. HOURS. 42£ The scars by this sharp sword in battle dealt Are the best honours Gabriel hath to vaunt; The brightest laurels on his brow are those I planted when in equal fight I deign'd To measure spears with such inferior foe. Doth Gabriel think God's favour can reverse Immutable pre-eminence, and raise His menial sphere to that, in which I shone Son of the morning? Doth he vainly hope, Exil'd from heav'n, we left our courage there, Or lost it in our fall ; or that hell's fires Have parch'd and wither'd our shrunk sinews up ? Delusive hope ! the warrior's nerve is strung By exercise, by pain, by glorious toil : _The torrid dime of hell, its burning rock, Its gulf of liquid flames, in which we roll'd, Have calcin'd our strong hearts, breath'd their own fires Into our veins, and forg'd those nerves to steel, Which heav'n's calm ether, her voluptuous skies And frequent adorations well nioh smoothed To the soft flexibility of slaves, Till bold rebellion shook its fetters off, And with their clangour rais'd so brave a storm, That God's eternal throne rock'd to its base. Dismissing the council, therefore, he calk for his arms : 4^6 LITERARY NO. XX. Tow'ring he stood, the Majesty of Hell, Dark o'er his brows thick clouds of vengeance rolPcL Thunder was in his voice, his eyes shot fire, And loud he call'd for buckler and for spear ; These bold Azazel bore, enormous weight, For Atlantean spirit proper Charge : With eager grasp he seiz'd the towering mast, And shook it like a twig, then with a frown, That aw'd the stoutest heart, gave sign for all Straight to disperse ; and vanish'd from their sight. The idea of this infernal synod is bold and original, and the triumph of Mammon, with the honours paid him, the indignation of Sa- tan on the appearance of Chemos, and his arming to encounter Gabriel, are highly wrought, and dilate the mind, by the vigour and grandeur of the fiction. The character of Satan here unfolds itself, wrapt in that terrible sublimity and spledour we so much admire in the pages of Milton, and whose lustre we shall find not only unimpaired as we proceed, but beaming with still greater intensity; whilst the meek and gentle demeanour of our Saviour, though armed with unlimited power, his severe sufferings and unoaralleled forbearance, form a contrast which extends throughout the work, and greatly contributes to the general effect, NO. XX. HOURS. 427 The fourth book, upon which we are about to enter, and the seventh, are perhaps the most magnificent in the work, abounding in the creations of fancy, in the sublime and wildly awful exertion of superhuman force and power* Our present subject, The Agony in the Gar- den, is worked up with great strength of imagination, and with the most judicious em- bellishments, on the hints of Scripture. St. Luke in his narrative of this part of our Saviour's sufferings, having recorded that " there appeared an angel unto him from hea- ven strengthening him," Mr. Cumberland has given this office to Gabriel, whom we have seen in the preceding book putting to flight Chemos the spy of hell, and who in the present is represented as discovering Satan near the same place, who, after the dispersion of the demons in the hall of the Sanhedrim, had thus stationed himself in pursuance of his threats. The fiend, confident in his own powerand cou- rage, and dreading no being save the Almighty, disdains concealment, and approaches the spot where Christ is praying in agony : but the moment our Saviour takes the mysterious cup, he feels his strength, as it were by enchantment, ^lasted j his spear and shield weigh down his 4^8 LITERARY NO. XX, arm, slack and unnerved ; and in this situation, Struck clown of Heav'n and qucll'd, he Is met by Gabriel, who reproves him for his impious temerity, and warns tiftfj to be gone. Satan, enraged by the contempt and reproaches of the archangel, and indignant at being found baffled and imbecile, thus answers his celestial opponent : Since this angelic form, from dearth exempt, Sometimes shall yield to aches and transient paini>- And natural ailments for a while endued, What wonder if emerial spirit like me, Pent in this atmosphere and fain to breathe The lazy fogs of this unwholesome earth, Pine for his native clime ? What, if he droop, Worn out with care and toil ? Wert thou as I, Driv n to and fro, and by God's thunder hutTd From Heay'n's high ramparts, would that silken form Abide the tossing on htlVs fiery lake ? Hndst thou, like me, traversal the vast profound Of ancient Night, and beat the weary wing Through stormy Chaos, voyage rude as this Would ruffle those fine plumes. Pve kept my course Through hurricanes, the least of which let loose On this firm globe would winnow it to dust, Snap like a weaver's thread the mighty chain, That links it to heav'n's adamantine floor, And whirl it through the Infinite of Space. And what hast thou, soft Cherub, done the whilst ? NO. XX. HOURS. 429 What are thy labours ? What hast thou achiev'd ? Heav'n knows no winter^ there no tempests howl ; To breathe perpetual spring, to sleep supine On flow'ry beds of amaranth nnd rose, 'Voluptuous slavery, was Gabriel's choice : His bosom never ;'r ^ th' indignant sigh, That rent my hear:, when, calPd to morning hymn, I paid compulsive homage at Gcd's throne, Warbling feign'd hallelujahs to his praise. Spirits of abject mould, and such art thou, May call this easy service, for they love Ignoble ease ; to me the fu!some task Was bitterest slavery, and though I fell, I fell opposing ; exil'd both from heav'n, Freedom and I shar'd the same glorious fall Go back then to thy drudgery of praise, Practise new canticles, and tune thy throat To flattery's fawning pitch ; leave me my groans, Leave me to teach these echoes how to curse; Here let me lie and make this rugged stone My couch,; my canopy this stormy cloud, That rolls stern winter o'er my fenceless head; ? Tis freedom's privilege, nor tribute owes, Nor tribute pays to Heav'n's despotic king. Nothing can exceed the energy and imagery of this taunting speech, and which .even in Milton would have been selected as one of his noblest passages. The sublime courage and despair of this demon are here drawn with & 43° iiterAry no* xx. masterly hand, and excite the highest admira- tion, though mingled with horror, at the wild majesty and intrepidity of his character. Whilst Satan is thus speaking, our Saviour draws nigh, and the effect of his approach on the enemy of God and man is painted with the terrific pencil of a Spagnioletti : — The fiend Or e'er the awful presence met his eye Shivering, as one by sudden fever seiz'd, Turn'd deadly pale ; then fell to earth convuls'd. Dire were the yells he vented, fierce the throes That wrkh'd his tortur'd frame, whilst through the scams And chinks that in his jointed armour gap'd, Blue sulph'rous flames in livid flashes burst, So hot the hell within his fuel'd heart, Which like a furnace seven times heated rag'd. Christ now addresses the prostrate demcvn, admonishes him that his reign on earth is over, that his dwelling is prepared in hell, and that there when they meet he must expect his doom ; meanwhile Judas advancing, the betrayal and seizure of Christ follow according to the scrip- ture narrative, and Satan left rolling in torments and unable to rise from the rock on which he NO. XX, HOURS. 43t had been cast by the power of Christ, bursts out into lamentation ; in vain implores relief, and wails his cruel boon of immortality : Will not some pitying earthquake guiph me down To where the everlasting fountains sleep, That in those wat'ry caverns I might slake These fires, that shrivel my parch'd sinews up ? Oh ! for pity Grant me a moment's interval of ease, Avenging, angry Deity ! Draw back Thy red right hand, that with the light'ning arm'd Thrust to my heart makes all my boiling blood Hiss in my veins* His reflections on the enormity of his con- duct, the guilt and misery he had occasioned, and on the improbability of repentance, or of mercy, are forcibly expressed, and are imme- diately succeeded by the appearance of Mam- mon, to whom Satan applies for assistance in rising from the ground; this aid that evil spirit readily grants : — In his strong grasp He seiz'd his giant limbs in armour clad Of adamant and gold, a ponderous wreck : Earth trembled with the shock ; dire were the groans Hell's Monarch vented, horrible the pains. 43* LITERARY NO. XX, That rack'd his stifFen'd joints ; yet on he toil'd Till by Heav Vs sufferance rather than by aid Of arm angelic once again he rear'd His huge Titantail stature to the skies, And stood. Mammon congratulates his leader on being raised from tlid bed of torture, and endeavours to console him. Satan in reply acknowledges the power and divinity of Christ, predicts his own approaching doom, and exclaims ; _ Now, ev'n now, I feel a nature in me, not mine own, That is my master, and against my will Enforces truth prophetic from mf tongue. Making me reverence whom in heart I hate : J feel that now, though lifted from the ground, I stand or move, or speak but as he wills, By influence not by freedom : I perceive These exhalations that the night breathes on me, Are loaded with the vaporous steams of hell ; I scent them in the air, and well I know The angel of destruction is abroad. Having said thus, he commissions Mammon to warn the partners of his fall of their impend- ing ruin should they presume to witness the crucifixion and death of Christ, and then, pro- mising to Mammon a long and prosperous ho. xx. hours. 433 reign on '-earth, a scene of tremendous sub- limity and terror ensues, that, whether its conception or execution be considered, cer- tainly merits every encomium. So spake the parting fiend in his last hour, Prophetic, father though he were of lies: To him the inferior demon answer none Attempted, but in ghastly silence stood Gazing with horror on his chieftain's face, That chang'd all hues by fits, as when the north With nitrous vapours charg'd, convulsive shoots lis fiery darts athwart the trembling pole, Making heav'n's vault a canopy of blood ; So o'er the visage of th' exorcis'd fiend Alternate gleams like meteors came and went ; And ever and anon he beat his breast, That quick and short with lab'ring pulses heav\L One piteous look he upward turn'd, one sigh From his sad heart he fain had sent to heav'n, But ere the hopeless messenger could leave His quivering lips, by sudden impulse seized, He finds himself uplifted from the earth ; His azure wings, to sooty black now chang'd, In wide expanse from either shoulder stretch For flight involuntary : Up he springs, Whirl'd in a fiery vortex round and round ; As when the Lybian wilderness caught up In sandy pillar by the eddying winds Moves horrible, the grave of man and beast j Vol. I. ' F f 434 LITERARY NO. XX. Him thus ascending the fork'd lightning smites With sidelong volley, whilst loud thunders rock HeavVs echoing vault, when all at once, behold ! Caught in the stream of an impetuous gust High in mid-air, swift on the level wing Northward he shoots, and like a comet leaves Long fiery track behind, speeding his course Straight to the realms of Chaos and old Nighr, Hell-bound, and to Tartarean darkness doom'd. Mammon shocked at the dreadful fate of his chieftain, and trembling for himself, escapes under covert of the night. It will immediately be perceived, that for the major part of this book we are indebted to the genius and enthusiasm of the poet, who, in a bold and vigorous excursion into the regions of imagination, has presented us with a picture of the most transcendent sublimity, and which has nothing to fear from a comparison with the productions of his master and model* The interviews between Gabriel and Satan, and Mammon and the arch fiend, are two of the best wrought scenes in the compass of poetry ; and no prejudice or spleen, be they ever so malignant, can hope to blast the laurels due to their conception. HOURS. Dumber xxl • : 1 — Eternal wrath Burnt after him to the bottomless pit. Milton Much criticism has been bestowed on the question, whether an epic poet should indulge in description of, or reflections oh, his own person or circumstances. The severer writers^ from the example of Homer and Virgil, have decided in the negative ; but it is evident Mil- ton thought otherwise, and in the opening of his third book, and in strains the most pathetic and sublime^ laments his deprivation of sight. Several other passages of a similar kind arc interspersed through the Paradise Lost ; and no person of taste and feeling would exchange these delightful morsels for the most elaborate kxid subtile criticism that human ingenuity could produce- Nor does there seem any just p f % 43'6 ** i T W*, A R Y ' NO. XX h reason why an epic poet should not be per- mitted occasionally to digress on subjects endeared to him by suffering and association. The judgment of our immortal bard. has been generally allowed to have been keen and accu- rate,and the result of his attempt is such that he r may with propriety be considered as a model in this respect to all future English poets, and as having given, additional grace and interest to the fabrics of antiquity.* Mr. Cumberland has therefore judiciously copied his learned predecessor in this respect, and at the commencement of the fifth book, after an invocation to the Evangelists, thus ■beautifully alludes to himself: ' Musing my pious theme, as fits a bard . Far onward in the wintry track of age, I shun the' Muses' haunts, nor dalliance hold ^ - With fancy by the way, hut travel on My 'mournful road, a pilgrim gray with years ; One that finds little favour with the world, * Camoens, the author of the Lusiad, preceded Milton in" the adoption of this plan, and with the happiest effect j the most pathetic passages in his poem being these, which dwell upon his own severe sufferings, and the unparalleled ill treatment' and ingratitude he experienced from bis native country. . no, xx?» hours.. 457 Yet thankful for m lecct 'benevolence, And pati&Af of ks tr:r's; for never yet Lur'd I the popular car with git>ing tales, Or sacrific'd the modesty or sp£g> Harping lewd madrigals at drunken f\. • :js To make the vulgar sport, and win their shorn. Me rather the still voice delights, the praise Whisper'd, not publish 'd by Fame's braying trump: Be thou my herald, Nature : Let: me please The sacred few* let my remembrance iive Embosom'd by the virtuous and the wise ; Make me,0 Heav'n; by those, who love thee, lmt& So when the widow's, and the children's tears Shall sprinkle the cold dust, in which I sleep Pompless, and from a scornful world withdrawn, The laurel, which its malice rent, shall shoot So water 'd into life, and mantling throw Its verdant honours o'er my grassy tomb. Here in mid- way of my unfinished course. Doubtful of future time, whilst now I pause To fetch new breath and trim my waning lamft Fountain of Life, if I have still ador'd Thy mercy, and remember'd Thee with awe Ev'n in my mirth, in the gay prime of youth— • So conscience witnesses, the mental scribe That registers my errors, quits me here- Propitious Power, support me ! and if death, Near at the farthest, meditates the blow To cut me short in my prevented task* Spare me a little, and put by the stroke, F F 3 43$ LITERARY NO. XXI, Till I recount his overthrow, and hail Thy Son victorious rising from the gravp. This exquisite digression, pregnant with the most plaintive imagery and sentiment, is a still further proof, if any were wanting, that the licence which Milton took, and which Mr, Cumberland has thus followed, is productive of the most pleasing effect, and unaccompa- nied with the smallest violence to the narra- tive, which is immediately resumed in a natural and easy manner. The trial and condemnation of Christ, the subjects of the fifth book, now take place, but as Scripture is here again closely adhered to, i,t will not be necessary to offer any extracts. It will be' sufficient, probably, to observe that the characters of Christ, Caiphas, Pilate, Peter, and Herod, are well preserved, and that the sorrow and contrition of the disciple, his soli- loquy and supplication for forgiveness, are drawn with great feeling and much felicity pf language, In the beginning of the sixth book, which * allotted to the Crucifixion, Judas mingles >o. xxi. hours. 439 with the multitude that throng the judgment hall, but endeavours to avoid the eye of oiir Saviour : Yet was his ear to all that Jesus spake Still present, and, though few the words, yet strong And potent of these few the impressive truth. There was a magic sweetness in his voice, A note that seem'd to shiver every nerve Entwin'd about his heart, though now corrupt, Pebas'd and harden'd. Ill could he abide, Murderer although he were, the dying tones Of him, whom he had murder'd; 'Twas the voict As of a spirit in the air by night Heard in the meditation of some crime, Or sleep-created in the troubled ear Of conscience i crying out. Beware f The imagery in the concluding part of this quotation is strikingly illustrative, and super- adds that pleasing awe and dread so interesting to a vivid fancy. On the suicide of Iscariot, which is brought about through the immediate instigation of Mammon, the author expatiates in a vein of pensive morality, O that my harp Could sound that happy note, which stirs the string F F 4 440 LITERARY NO. Responsive, that kind Nature hath entwin'd About the human heart, and by whose clue Repentance, heavenly monitres$, reclaims The youthful wanderer from his dangerous maze To tread her peaceful paths and seek his God : So could my fervent, my effectual verse Avail, posterity should then engrave That verse upon my tomb, to tell the world I did not live in vain. But heedless man, Deaf to the music of the moral song, By Mammon or by Belial led from sin To sin, runs onward in his mad career, Nor once takes warning of his better guide, Till at the barrier of life's little span Arriv'd he stops : Death opens to his view A hideous gulph ; in vain he looks around For the lost seraph Hope ; beside him stands The tyrant fiend, and urges to the brink ; Behind him black Despair with threat'ning frown And gorgon shield, whose interposed orb Bars all retreat, and with its shade involves , Life's brighter prospects in one hideous night. Mammon, in compliance with the request of Satan, having convened the demons in the wilderness, warns them to flight, and relates to them the expulsion of that arch-fiend from the earth ; they disperse in terror, and the de- scription of the procession to Mount Calvary &ahft Mh nas 'Adirlw vaqtfrf toft Brum tiubl »p. xxi. h o u r s. 441 next occurs : on the summit of this hill the poet has artfully placed Gabriel and his at- tendant angels, and in a passage of great merit delineates the effect of the spectacle on the mind of the indignant Seraph. — -Here Gabriel, from the height Noting the sad procession, had espied The suffering son of God, amidst the throng Dragg'd slowly on by rude and ruffian hands To shameful execution : Horror-struck, Pierc'd to the heart, th' indignant Seraph shook His threatening spear, and with the other hand Smote on his thigh in agony of soul For man's ingratitude ; glist'ning with tears His eyes, whence late celestial sweetness beam'd, Now shot a fiery glance. The picture with which we are next pre- sented glows with tinting of the tenderest and softest beauty, and cannot fail to elicit the tear of pity and compassion from every eye. Where'er the Saviour pass'd, his presence drew Thousands to gaze ; and many an aching heart Heav'd silent the last tributary sigh In memory of his mercies ; zealous some Rush'd in, the grateful blessing to bestow For health or limbs or life itself restored : 44 2 LITERARY NO. XXf 1 Loud the cry Of women, whose soft sex to pity prone Melts at those scenes which flinty -hearted man Bry-ey'd contemplate : Mothers in their arms Held up their infante, and with shrill acclaim Begg'd a last blessing for those innocents, Whose sweet simplicity so well he lov'd* And ever as he met them laid his hands* Upon their harmless heads with gentle love And gracious benediction, breathing heaven Into their hearts. O happy babes, so blest ! After addressing himself to the daughters of Jerusalem, our Saviour is fixed to the cross* Now began The executioners to spread his arms Upon the beam transverse, and through his palms. Monsters of cruelty ! and through his feet, They drove their spiked nails ; whilst at the elang Of those dire engines every feeling heart Uttered a groan, that with the mingled shrieks Of mothers and of children pierc'd the air. The very soldiers paused and stood aghast, Musing what these lamentings might portend; Scarce dard they to pursue the dreadful work, Awe-struck, and gazing on the face divine Of the suspended Saviour. uo. xxi. hours. 443 This last circumstance is v/ell imagined, and gives a very picturesque finishing to the scene. The rest of the hook being occupied merely with the detail of incidents as related in the Evangelists, viz. the crucifixion of the male- factors, the death of Christ, and the resurrec- tion of the saints and prophets, we shall pass on to the subject of the seventh book, the Descent into Hell, which offers a noble theme to our poet, and has been treated by him in a manner that does high honour to his genius and taste. Imagination here has free scope, and, borne beyond the limits of the material world, expatiates as in her native clime. Evening having now succeeded the struggles of nature, the book opens with its description, and represents the dead body of Christ still hanging on the cross. These lines we shall quote for the sake of the three concluding ones, which present an image altogether new, and of inimitable beauty. Now Hesperus renewed his evening lamp, And hung it forth amid the turbid sky To mark the close of this portentous day : 444 LITERARY NO, XXI r The labVing Sun, in his mid course eclips'd, Darkling at length had reach'd his western goal F And now it seem'd as if all Nature slept - Overspent and wearied with convulsive throes. Upon his cross the martyr d Saviour hung; Pais through the fivilighi gleamed his breathless c&tfr And silvery white, as vjhen the moon- beam ftays On the smooth surface of 'the glassy lake. Si. John supporting the blessed Virgin is described watching near the cross, and a mourn- ful and pathetic dialogue ensues between them; meanwhile the Spirit of Christ is conveyed on the wings of Cherubim into the regions of Death, whose domains, with a distant view of the bottomless pit, are drawn with a dark but powerful pencil. Here, at the foot of Death's terrific throne, Satan,, driven by the whirl- wand's rage, had just arrived. Down on the solid adamant he fell Precipitate at once, and lay entranced Of arch-angelic majesty the wreck. Scar'd at the hideous crash, and all aghast, Death screamed amain, then wrapt himself in clouds, And in his dark pavilion trembling sate Mantled in night: And now the prostrate fiend Rear'd his terrific head with lightnings scorch'd. And furrow'd deep wiih scars of livid hue ; ho* xx i • .hours. 445 Then stood erect and rolPd his blood-shot eyes To find the ghastly vision of grim Death, Who at the sudden downlal of his sire Sta rtled, and of his own destruction warn'd, Had shrunk from sight, and to a misty cloud Dissolved, hung low'ring o'er his shrouded throne, When Satan, whose last hope was now at stake, impatient for the interview, exclaim'd, Where art thou, Death? Why hide thyself from hi ui, Of whom thou art ? Come forth, thou grisly king I And though to suitor of immortal mould Thy refuge he denied, yet at my call, Thy father's call, come forth and comfort me, Thou gaunt anatomy, with one short glimpse Of those dry bones^ in which alone is peace. And that oblivious sleep for which I sigh. He said, and now a deep and hollow groan* Like roar of distant thunders shook the hall, And from before the clqud-envelop'd throne The adamantine pavement burst in twain With hideous crash self-open'd, and displayed A subterranean chasm, whose yawning vault, Deep as the pit of Acheron, forbade All nearer access to the shadowy king. Whereat the imprison'd winds, that in its womb W ere cavern 9 d, ? gan to heave their yeasty waves In bubbling exhalations, till at once Their eddying vapours working upward burst From the broad vent enfranchise ; when? behold ! 446 LITERARY NO. Mfo The cloud that late around the throne had poUr'd More than Egyptian darkness, now began To lift its fleecy skirts, till through the mist The imperial phantom gleam'd $ monster deform'dj Enormous, terrible, from heel to scalp One dire anatomy ; his giant bones Star'd through the shrivell'd skin, that loosely hung On his sepulchral carcass ; round his brows A cypress wreath, tiara-like, he wore, With nightshade and cold hemlock inteftwin'd ; Behind him hung his quiver'd store of darts Wing'd with the raven's plume ; his fatal bow Of deadly yew, tall as Goliath's spear, Propp'd his unerring arm ; about his throne, If throne it might be call'd, which was compos'd Of human bones, as in a charnel pil'd, A hideous group of dire diseases stood; Sorrow and pains and agonizing plagues, His ghastly satellites, and, ev'n than these More terrible, Ambition's slaught'ring sons, Heroes and conquerors sty I'd on earth, but here Doom'd to ignoble drudgery, employ'd To do his errands in the loathsome vault, And tend corruption's never-dying womi, To haunt the catacombs and ransack graves* Where some late populous city is laid waste By the destroying pestilence, or storm 'd By rnurdering Russ, or Tartar, blood-besinear ? c! 7 And furious in the desp'rate breach to plant His eagk, or his crescent on the piles &o. xxr. HOD RS. 44| Of mangled multitudes, and flout the sky With his victorious banners. Now a troop Of shrouded ghosts upon a signal given By their terrific Monarch start to sight, Each with a torch funereal in his grasp, That o'er the hall diffus'd a dying light, Than darkness* self more horrible. The walls Of that vast cenotaph, hung round with spears, Falchions and pole-axes and plumed helms, Show'd like the arm'Vy of some warlike state ; There ev'ry mortal weapon might be seen, Each implement of old or new device, Which savage nature or inventive art Furnish'd to- arm the ruffian hand of War,. And deal to man the life-destroying stroke: And them betwixt at intervals were plac'd The crowned skeletons of mighty kings, Caesars and Caliphs, and barbarian Chiefs, 'Monsters, whose swords had made creation shrink. And frighted Peace and Science from the earth. This description of the person and palace of the King of Terrors has many traits of ge- nuine sublimity, though perhaps the obscurity which Milton has thrown around his delinea- tion of Death, tends more to excite admiration and terror. The prior half of the quotation will suffer nothing in comparison with any portion of Milton, but the remainder appears r w ' £ a O H • LXX v 0j| 448 LITERARY NO. ttU too minute, and, though possessing consider- able merit, . not of sufficient dignity for the occasion. This horrible phantom should ever be circumfused by a gloomy atmosphere through which the eye in vain strives to ac- quire an accurate knowledge of its object, Placed in the broad blaze of day, its terrors, its sublimity, the product of uncertain imagina- tion, vanish, and deformity alone remains. A dialogue between Satan and his offspring Death, in which that arch-fiend in vain makes suit for protection, is maintained with cha- racteristic sentiment and imagery, and termi- nated by the approach of Christ, who, enca- riopied beneath the wings of Cherubim, and preceded by the angel trump, victoriously appears, whilst darkness sinks to the centre, Death trembles on his throne, and Satan falls motionless on the ground. Our Saviour now addresses and passes sentence on the prostrate demon, and immediately The strong vindictive Angel, to whose charge The key of that infernal pit belongs — — seiz'd him in his grasp, and from the ground Lifting his pond'rous bulk, such vigour dwelt In arm celestial, headlong down at once ko. xxi. hours. 449 Down hurl'd him to the bottom of the gulph, Then follow'd on the wing : His yelling cries Death hear'd, whilst terror shiver'd every bone* Meantime the cherubic choir chant songs of gratulation and triumph, and hail the day- spring of salvation, whilst Satan, — — ten thousand fathoms deep, At bottom of the pit, a mangled mass, With shatter'd brain and broken limbs outspread, Lay groaning on the adamantine rock : Him the strong angel with etherial touch Made whole in form, but not to strength restor'd, Rather to pain and the acuter sense Of shame and torment ; hideous was the glare Of his blood-streaming eyes, and loud he yell'd For very agony, whilst on his limbs The massy fetters, such as hell alone Could forge in hottest sulphur, were infix'd And riveted in the perpetual stone : Upon his back he lay extended, huge, A hideous ruin ; not a word vouchsaf 'd That vengeful Angel, but with quick dispatch Plied his commission'd task, then stretch'd the wing, ' And upward flew; for now th' infernal cave Through all its vast circumference had giv'n The dreadful warning, and began to close Its rocky ribs upon th' imprisoned fiend : Vol. L Gg 45° LITERARY NO* XX I » Fierce and more fierce as it approach'd became The flaming concave ; thus comprest, the vault Red as metallic furnace glow'd intense With heat, that, had the hideous den been less Than adamant it had become a flood, Or Satan other than he was in sin And arch-angelic strength pre-eminent, He neither could have sufFer'd nor deserv'd: Panting he roll'd in streams of scalding sweat, Parch'd with intolerable thirst ; one drop Of water then to cool his racing tongue, Had been a boon worth all his golden shrines : Vain wish ! for now the pit had clos'd its mouth, Nor other light remain'd than what the glare Of those reverberating fires bestow'd : Then all the dungeon round was thick beset With horrid faces, threat'ning as they glar'd Their haggard eyes upon him ; from hell's lake Flocking they came, whole legions of the damnM, His worshippers on earth, sensual, prophane, Abominable in their lives, monsters of vice, Blood-stained murderers, apostate kings, And crowned tyrants some, tormented now For their past crimes, and into furies turn'J, Accusing their betrayer :' Curses dire, Hissings and tauntings now from every side Assail'd his ear, on him, on him alone, Frcfm Cain first murderer to Iscariot, all, All with loud voices charg'd on him their sins, Their agonies, with imprecations urgVl NO. XXI, HOURS. 451 For treble vengeance on his head accurst, Founder of hell, sole author of their woes, And enemy avow'd of all mankind. For perspicuity and strength of imagina- tion, for terrible and gigantic conception, no passage in this or any other poem can be pro- duced in rivalry of the quotation we have now given. The infernal cave closing on its dread- ful inhabitant, the tremendous agency of the vindictive Angel, and the ghastly apparitions ranged within the flaming concave, and pour- ing forth curses on their agonized betrayer, are paintings which display the energy of very powerful and creative genius. Death, having thus witnessed the punish- ment and imprisonment of Satan, humbly acknowledges the Messias, and tenders him his crown and key, the latter of which is given to Gabriel by Christ, with a commission to set free the Saints of the first resurrection. On the approach of these the book concludes, and the eighth and last opens with a beautiful de- scription of their appearance, under the con- duct of the Arch-angel: c g z 45^ LITERARY NO. XXI. Now had the Saviour by the word of po wer Wafted the magic Phantom into air, And ail the horrors of the scene dispell'd : Swift as the stroke of his own winged dart, Or flitting shadows by the moon-beam chas'd, Death on the instant vanish'd : What had seem'd A citadel of proud and martial port, With bastions fenc'd and towers impregnable, Of adamant compos'd and lofty dome, Covering the throne imperial, now w r as air; And far as eye could reach, a level plain, In the interminable horizon lost, Unfolded its vast champaign to the view. Darkness twin-born with Death had fled; the rays, That from the Saviour's sun-crown'd temples beam'd, With dazzling lustre brighten'd all the scene. There just emerging to the distant view, And glittering white, a multitude appeared, Stretch'd east and west in orderly array, Swift marching underneath the mighty wings Of the protecting Angel, who in air Soar'd imminent, and with the broad expanse From flank to flank envelop'd all the host. The contrast and rapidity of change be- tween the adamantine citadel and parapher- nalia of Death and the immeasurable cham- paign, and emerging saints, is in the spirit of Arabian fable, and productive of a pleasing 9 KO. XXI. hours. 453 effect; whilst the concluding and noble picture of the mighty Seraph prepares the mind for the solemn subject of the book, and harmonises with the immediately succeeding scenery. Our Saviour having ascended a mountain in the midst of the congregation appears to them clothed with glory, and promises them the joys of a blessed immortality. They adore him in hymns of praise and thanksgiving:; and Abraham confers with our Saviour, and is shewn the beatific vision of the heavenly Jeru- salem as recorded in the Apocalypse. Christ reascends to earth, and Gabriel explains the purport of the Redeemer's resurrection, and enters into a conference with Moses. The Spirit of God now descends, and inspires them with the knowledge necessary to their happy state, whilst a Paradise destined for their abode, until the Lord's return from earth, springs up at the presence of the Deity, and is thus ele- gantly described : Over head Loud thunderings announc'd the coming Gods 454 LITERARY NO. XXI. And now a fire, that cover'd all the mount, Bespoke him present ; all the air respir'd Ambrosial odours, amaranth and rose, For Nature felt her God, and every flower And every fragrant shrub, whose honey'd breath Perfumes the courts of heav'n, had burst to life Blooming, and, in a thousand colours dy'd, Threw their gay mantle o'er the naked heath : Now glow'd the living landscape; hill and dale Rose on the flat, or sunk as Nature shap'd Her loveliest forms and swell'd her wavy line, Leaving unrein'd variety to run Her wild career amid the sportive scene: Nor were there wanting trees of ev'ry growth, Umbrageous some, making a verdant tent Under their spreading branches ; some of shaft Majestic, tow'ring o'er the subject groves: Blossoms and fruits and aromatic gums Scented the breeze, that fann'd their rustling leaves : And them betwixt, a crystal river flow'd O'er golden sands, meand'ring in its course Through amaranthine banks with lulling sound Of dulcet murmurs breathing soft repose. And now Gabriel addresses the Saints for the last time, assuring them that this Pa- radise ko. xxi. hours. 455 Is but their passage to a brighter scene, A resting-place till Christ shall re-ascend To the right hand of God, and call them hence To share his glory in the heav'n of heavens. He then springs on the wing, and with the swiftness of the meteor disappears. Thus concludes a Poem, which for grandeur and sublimity of design and execution will assuredly rank high in the estimation of the critic, and to those who combine religious fervour with poetic enthusiasm afford delight of the most exquisite relish. Though Mr. Cumberland has been compelled in many parts to adhere with scrupulous accuracy to circum- v stances and events well known, yet has a con- siderable portion of the work been devoted to the splendour and novelties of fiction, to the delineation of beings beyond the limits of our habitable sphere, and, though the author had a model that might guide his efforts, yet were the merits of that model, its sublimity and beauty, so transcendent, that to place by its side a production that would not suffer by the comparison, certainly required the most 45° LITERARY NO. XXt. arduous exertions of genius, the most curious felicities of imitation. If any general objection can be made, it is that, in the design, sufficient compass has not been assumed; that the creations of fancy bear not an adequate proportion to the narrative of Scripture, and that consequently the deep so* lemnity and severe tone of the poem are not fully relieved by the charms of description and the play of imagery. In Milton the beauties ot Nature are freely introduced, and dwelt upon : and, could Mr. Cumberland have so arranged his plan as to have admitted descrip- tion of this kind, he would greatly have en- hanced its value and the variety of its attrac- tion. As it is, the only piece in the purely de scriptive line we can recollect throughout the whole poem is the picture of paradise, in the eiglitn book, and which is finished in a style that induces regret at the poet's inatten- tion to this resource. It is true, that in the work as no w constituted, owing to its slight digression from the Gospel record, such intro- du tiqh wdutd be impertinent: but, had the cutfine been rendered more extensive, episo- dical parts must necessarily have been in- no. xxi. hours. 457 eluded, and in these the imagery alluded to might judiciously have been employed, and would have operated the effect required. Na- tural History has lately received so many ac- cessions, that the poetic genius, who should assiduously cultivate this branch of science, would from its sources alone be able to throw an interesting novelty over his productions, and the similies of an epic poem would no longer exhibit a tissue of hereditary and servile imagery. Few literary men of the present day have written upon more various and contrasted subjects than the Author of Calvary, and it will tend strongly to impress upon the public mind a favourable idea of his genius, when it shall reflect, that in the course of four or five years he has presented it with bold and spirited imitations of Milton and Fielding, two au- thors who have no point in contact, and that his Calvary and his Henry have the raciness and vigour of originals, and will probably de- scend to remote ages in conjunction with their prototypes. Should we now advert to his nu- merous Comedies and Essays^ effusions of great Vol. L H h 458 LITERARY HOURS. NO. XXI* and acknowledged merit, it will perhaps not appear too much to affirm, that to no author of the eighteenth century in polite literature are we under greater obligations. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME* tuke Hanfard, Printer, Great Turnstile, LincolnVInn Fields*